LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

ST.    LOUIS  EXHIBIT 


LIBRARY 

OF  THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


*rafc 


THE   MONARCH 
BILLIONAIRE 


BY 

MORRISON  I.  SWIFT 

Author  of  "Imperialism  and  Liberty,"  "Is  It  Right  to  Rob 
Robbers?"  etc.,  etc. 


or  THE 


NEW  YORK 
J.  S.  OGILVIE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

57  ROSE  STREET 


Copyright,  1903,  by 
EMILY  F.  SWIFT. 


P5353T 
Wfc8 
1403 


UNIVERSITY 

or 


THE  MONARCH  BILLIONAIRE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FOR  a  rough  diamond  Giles  Wyndon  was  far  in 
the  lead  in  the  seaboard  town  of  his  adoption.  So 
rough  was  Giles  that  his  fellow  inhabitants,  save 
one,  questioned  disquietedly  whether  he  was  a 
diamond.  That  one  was  Margaret  Wyndon,  his 
pretty  daughter,  to  whom  alone,  except  money, 
Old  Giles  was  devoted  with  his  soul. 

Giles  was  reputed  to  be  rich,  "enormously"  rich, 
the  envious  said,  but  there  again,  as  with  the  age 
of  Giles,  all  was  speculation,  for  although  he  con 
ducted  large  deals  in  shipping,  manufacturing, 
banking,  and  other  departments  of  usefulness,  all 
of  it  was  done  in  the  name  of  a  company,  The 
Amalgamated  Fish,  Ship,  Iron,  Transportation, 
Coal,  and  Steel  Company,  of  which,  however,  the 
principal  partners,  whoever  they  might  be,  never 


2  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

appeared  to  interfere  with  the  conduct  of  Giles. 
He  hought  and  sold  and  builded  and  schemed  and 
speculated  and  added  factories  to  The  Amalga 
mated  until  the  workmen  it  comprehended  made 
Steel  Haven  a  city,  of  which  The  Amalgamated 
was  itself  the  chief  and  guardian  thing. 

But  it  was  a  rickety  city,  cultureless,  squali'd  and 
unbeautiful,  and  in  the  heart  of  the  ricketiness 
lived  Giles  with  his  sparkling  feminine  treasure 
in  a  ramshackle  tenement  unfit  to  stand. 

"I  am  too  poor  for  a  better,"  he  said  to  the  neigh 
bors,  with  that  grimace  which  made  the  children 
run  and  the  elders  creep.  They  all  feared  Giles. 
Some  of  them  secretly  called  him  the  Devil's  Nose, 
he  was  into  so  many  things.  Preternaturally 
weird  and  magnetic  he  was,  frightening  his  vic 
tims  so  much  that  they  thought  him  Old  Nick,  so 
named  him  "Old"  Giles,  though  in  years  he  was 
just  in  the  early  heyday  of  middle  life  and  tower 
ing  strong. 

Four  miles  off  and  inland  on  the  river  there  was 
a  seat  of  eminent  refinement  and  sedate  repose, 
the  town  of  Bernfield,  with  its  ancient  homes,  its 
families  stretching  dimly  back,  its  inherited  wealth 
and  its  stately  college  for  young  men.  Old  Giles 
hated  Bernfield,  hated  its  people,  its  rigid  intan 
gible  memories,  and  its  culture,  and  he  would  have 
locked  up  the  river  just  above  his  wharves  and  for- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  3 

bidden  the  Bernfield  pleasure  yachts  from  riding 
out  to  the  ocean  if  it  had  been  in  his  power  to  do  so. 
Those  who  have  visited  this  rare  carving  of  na 
ture  can  never  forget  it.  The  mountains  in  many 
convolutions  and  fissures  bend  around  the  town  011 
the  landward  side  in  a  protecting  crescent.  From 
the  clefts  and  ravines,  each  profoundly  differing 
from  its  neighbors,  issue  limpid  streams  that  join 
at  intervals  in  the  town,  rolling  through  private 
grounds  or  down  the  centre  of  winding,  pictur 
esque  streets  with  flexured  driveways  on  either 
side,  affording  the  architect  and  landscape  gar 
dener  priceless  opportunities  for  enhancing  na 
ture's  marvelous  effects.  On  account  of  the  moun 
tain  wall  Bernfield  climate  escaped  the  winter 
bleakness  of  environing  regions.  A  large,  exclu 
sive  hotel  prospered  at  all  seasons  on  a  huge  ledge 
of  the  crescent,  admitting  to  its  luxuries  only 
those  commended  by  some  Bernfield  best  family, 
and  at  night  the  lights  of  this  caravansary,  glis 
tened  above  the  town  like  the  humanized  spirit  of 
an  electric  constellation,  softening  the  chill  or 
gloom  of  storm  and  darkness.  Prom  Bernfield 
down  to  the  sea  line  sloped  a  rich  plain  laden  with 
handsome  farms,  many  of  which  were  owned  by 
the  prosperous  families  of  Bernfield  and  culti 
vated  by  the  higher  order  of  tenantry,  whose  spe 
cific  excellence  lay  in  politeness  and  appreciative 


4  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

humility  to  the  owner  quite  as  much  as  in  virtu 
osity  on  the  subject  of  crops. 

Bernfield  had  risen  supreme  to  most  earthly  dis 
tempers,  hut  its  surviving  sorrow  was  Old  Giles 
Wyndon.  He  was  in  every  specification  an  en- 
croacher.  At  a  poetic  distance  Steel  Haven,,  with 
its  hlack  mills  helching  smoke  and  flame 
might  be  tolerable,  but  through  the  will  and  wiles 
of  its  indomitable  lord,  Steel  Haven  was  marching 
inexorably  up  the  river  toward  Bernfield,  gulping 
down  lovely  morsels  of  farm  and  forest  like  an  in 
satiable  foraging  demon.  They  kept  him  out  of 
Bernfield,  that  is  real  Bernfield,  all  the  choice 
lands  where  the  gentlefolks  lived.  They  did  this 
by  a  strictly  graven  compact  among  themselves  to 
sell  Bernfield  realty  only  to  people  vestured  in  a 
suitable  degree  of  culture  creditably  to  occupy  it. 
The  shaft  was  aimed  at  Giles,  openly  aimed,  for 
Giles  was  the  evoker  of  smiles  and  sneers  among 
the  elite.  It  was  known  from  his  own  lips  that  he 
had  only  with  difficulty  learned  to  read  in  his  fif 
teenth  year ;  a  pagan  and  a  vandal,  by  preference, 
education  and  ignorance. 

But  every  well-bred  town  must  have  its  serving 
population  and  they  had  not  been  forethoughted 
enough  to  exclude  Old  Giles  from  the  territory  of 
their  servile  quarter.  He  had  quietly  pursued  a 
policy  which,  at  the  right  turn  of  events,  would 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  5 

place  Bernfield  on  its  knees.  The  Amalgamated 
was  builder  and  owner  of  a  trolley  system  from 
Steel  Haven  to  the  town  limits  of  Bernfield,  to 
which  the  Bernfield  Council,  mouthpiece  of  the 
superior  class,  had  sternly  proscribed  entrance. 
The  real  Bernfielders  had  their  carriages  and  a  few 
faded  families  the  spirit  to  walk.  But  Giles  had 
colonized  the  serving  district  with  families  from 
his  mills.  He  circled  the  trolley  path  round  to  th^ 
outskirts  of  this  section,  and  daily  the  workmen 
rode  to  and  from  their  toil. 

"Houses  are  scarce  in  Steel  Haven,"  communi 
cated  Giles;  "I  don't  have  to  pay  them  any  more 
wages,  and  it  means  ten  cents  a  day  the  individual 
back  into  the  pockets  of  The  Amalgamated." 

Many  of  these  people  rented  homes  of  the  Bern- 
field  gentry,  which  was  acceptable,  and  as  they  di 
vided  their  votes  between  the  rival  factions  of  the 
aristocracy  at  elections,  and  kept  themselves  in 
the  "Slave  Quarter/7  as  some  high  ladies  called  it, 
and  supplied  servant  girls  to  the  fashion,  the  bet 
ter  sort  suffered  no  painful  concern  at  their  in 
creasing  number. 

As  Giles  expected  that  Margaret  would  some 
time  marry,  from  her  babyhood  he  had  given  ar 
dent  paternal  study  to  the  question  of  her  mar 
rying  right.  His  hatred  of  Bernfield  and  every 
thing  Bernfieldian  had  contributed  most  to  the 


6  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

scheme  for  his  daughter's  education.  Books  he 
abhorred  as  a  Bernfield  attribute,,  the  less  of  which 
the  better,  and  schools  also,  the  progeny  of  Bern- 
field  colleges.  Old  Giles  had  done  some  stiff  rea 
soning  in  years  gone.  His  girl  must  never  marry 
the  kind  of  mimic  men  that  ornamented  Bernfield, 
and  he  took  a  radical  YOW  to  inhibit  the  event. 
She  should  not  be  spoiled  by  education,  for  if  left 
to  lipen  in  virgin  crudity  the  cultured  men  would 
have  no  use  for  her  nor  she  for  them.  True  to  this 
iconoclastic  resolve  Margaret  was  never  sent  to 
school.  Giles  taught  her  to  read  simple  words,  a 
little  writing  and  arithmetic,  and  there  her  schol 
arly  gymnastics  ceased.  For  six  years  the  stub 
born-hearted  man  had  mourned  the  loss  of  his  wife 
before  a  son  had  come  to  him,  and  the  misfortune 
that  Margaret  was  not  a  boy,  but  as  business  and 
the  infant  grew  he  solved  the  problem  of  both  by 
determining  to  make  a  boy  of  Margaret. 

She  was  allowed  to  play  like  a  lad  until  eight, 
when  Giles  began  to  take  her  with  him  everywhere, 
her  strong,  healthy  body  being  his  delight  and 
everybody's  admiration.  He  made  her  his  com 
panion  among  the  ships  and  shops,  encouraging 
her  to  question  into  things  and  work  among  the 
rough  men  as  she  grew  tall  and  strong.  This 
pleased  her  father,  but  what  gladdened  him  more 
was  her  precocious  aptitude  for  business.  From 


The  Monarch   Billionaire.  7 

the  time  of  that  precious  discovery  he  kept  the 
girl  with  him  in  his  transactions,  explaining 
away  the  difficulties  when  the  men  he  had  bar 
gained  with  were  gone.  At  the  age  of  nineteen, 
after  eleven  years  of  this  peculiar  tutelage,  Mar 
garet  Wyndon  comprehended  the  profound'est  in 
tricacies  of  Giles'  affairs — excepting  the  consti 
tution  of  The  Amalgamated  Company;  he  even 
pronounced  her  his  superior  in  grasp  and  judg 
ment,  and  trusted  her  in  large  matters  as  he  would 
not  have  confided  in  a  trained  male  ^partner  of  his 
own  years. 

"She  will  never  marry  a  Bernfield  jay  or  his 
like,"  he  assured  himself  contentedly.  "My  plan 
of  education  was  right." 

And  yet  Margaret  gave  him  some  qualms. 
Through  all  this  wonderful  discipline,  which 
seemed  a  solemn  and  awful  thing  to  the  man  of 
concerns,  she  remained  in  much  a  mere  child  at 
nineteen,  so  exuberantly  young,  so  fresh  and  full 
of  irrepressible  spirit,  and  not  the  least  weighted 
with  the  towering  transactions  in  which  she  rather 
sported  than  worked,  as  instinctive  master,  like  the 
careless  bird  building  its  home  in  the  light.  Those 
colossal  affairs  that  staggered  mature  men  with 
their  monstrous  dignity  were  her  amusements  be 
cause  she  had  learned  them  as  childhood  diversions. 
How  silly  the  care-eaten  men  looked  to  her  in  their 


8  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

sweat  and  torture  over  these  little  subjects  of 
money. 

"It  has  come  so  easy  to  her/'  Giles  sighed ;  "she 
doesn't  know  or  respect  the  brains  she  exercises/' 

On  one  point  Giles  had  been  scrupulously  reti 
cent  to  Margaret.  Although  never  mincing  his 
scorn  for  the  Bernfield  tribe  and  all  their  effem 
inate  gods,  he  had  not  betrayed  the  depth  or  cause 
of  his  personal  hatred  for  their  leading  families, 
and  this  reserve  came  from  a  shrinking  sentiment 
that  there  were  traits  in  him  which  must  not  be 
revealed  incautionsly  to  this  young  girl  if  he  would 
cherish  unharmed  her  perfect  trust  for  which  he 
now  cared  supremely ;  yet  he  proceeded  sternly  on 
his  way,  compassing  plans  that  since  a  fearful  con 
vulsive  hour  had  been  the  passionate  purpose  of 
his  life.  In  selecting  a  destiny  a  man  may  fore- 
shape  the  physical  results  and  miss  perception  of 
what  will  happen  therefrom  within  him. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ONE  of  the  old  and  formerly  wealthy  families 
of  Bernfield'  had  been  sinking  for  a  number  of 
years  into  financial  decay  through  devotion  to  idle 
ness,  pinochle  and  luxury.  Contempt  for  Giles 
had  not  hindered  the  surviving  patriarch  of  this 
family  clan  from  borrowing  his  money,,  which  the 
wily  financier  had  supplied  on  condition  of  lifting  ^ 
previous  encumbrances  from  the  estate  and  having 
it  mortgaged  to  him  alone.  The  end  had  'come  and 
the  ancestral  homestead  was  offered  for  sale.  Lead 
ing  citizens  had  organized  a  syndicate  for  its  pur 
chase  as  a  club  house  and  private  park,  but  when 
Old  Giles  signified  his  intention  to  bid  a  public  sale 
was  arranged.  As  the  day  approached  it  was  evi 
dent  that  a  great  struggle  was  preparing.  With 
Bernfield  not  only  the  coveted  club  house,  but  even 
more  the  exclusion  of  the  plebeian  pusher  Giles, 
was  at  stake. 

The  Eichfont  property  numbered  many  acres 
in  the  handsomest  portion  of  town,  its  stately  man- 


TO          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

sion  lying  far  back  among  the  mighty  trees  of  the 
grand  park.  On  the  day  of  its  sale  Margaret  ac 
companied  Giles  to  Bernfield.  His  racy  wit  flashed 
sharply  in  contemplation  of  his  intended  victory. 

The  bidding  opened  confidently  with  the  Bern- 
fielders,  Giles  prudently  exceeding  them  but  fifty 
dollars.  They  raised  a  thousand  and  Giles  cov 
ered  it  with  fifty.  They  went  up  five  thousand 
and  Giles  modestly  added  another  fifty.  This  was 
repeated  four  times,  the  excitement  becoming  tre 
mendous.  Then  they  fell  back  to  thousand-dol 
lar  advances,  Giles  accompanying  them  as  before. 
The  sum  was  nearing  a  hundred  thousand  with  ter 
rific  strain  to  the  spectators  and  syndicate  bidders. 
It  was  four  times  the  initial  offer. 

"An  even  two  hundred  thousand,"  came  from 
the  syndicate  in  a  stroke  of  desperation.  It  was  a 
dizzy  leap. 

"And  fifty/'  drawled  Giles. 

He  and  Margaret  were  the  only  unexcited  per- 
bons.  Margaret  was  studying  Bernfield  high  life, 
its  culture  in  abeyance  and  its  passions  unmasked 
in  the  fierce  eagerness  to  get  something.  She 
looked  on  wonderingly.  There  were  the  persons  of 
breeding  and  polish,  words  she  had  heard  caus 
tically  uttered  in  connection  with  Bernfield.  She 
scanned  the  tense,  angry  faces  of  the  wives  and 
daughters  of  the  men  who  were  making  the  fight. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  n 

The  men,  under  the  spell  of  commercial  rage, 
showed  themselves  of  the  type  that  she  was  fa 
miliar  with  in  business.  None  of  them  rose  above 
the  hard,  vulgar  level.  Her  eyes  took  an  inventory 
of  the  crowdi  and  only  then  rested  upon  a  form  that 
stood  somewhat  aloof  leaning  against  a  tree;  it 
was  a  young  man  well  attired  who  was  also  sur 
veying  the  spectacle.  In  the  course  of  its  wander 
ing  his  look  fell  upon  Margaret  and  their  eyes 
met. 

Bidding  entered  the  third  hundred  thousand 
and  advanced  gloomily.  Old  Giles  always  kept 
his  lead  of  fifty  dollars,  his  lip  curledi  with  a  dia 
bolical  expressiveness.  At  length,  as  if  over-bored 
by  the  protraction,  he  took  a  paper  from  his 
pocket  and  appeared  to  read. 

The  other  side  gathered  for  conference,  in  which 
the  young  man  at  the  tree  joined,  the  amused, 
quizzical  look  still  glimmering  in  his  face.  Then 
there  was  a  period  of  dogged  monotonous  responses 
of  fifty  dollars  on  each  side,  with  occasional  spasm? 
leaping  ten  thousand.  Sullen  scowls  had  frozen 
on  the  faces  of  the  aristocracy.  They  were  not  in 
the  position  of  Giles,  who  could  raise  the  price  ^ 
of  some  indispensable  commodity  half  a  cent  and 
clear  millions  by  it  the  next  day. 

"Three  hundred  thousand,"  issued  from  the 
spokesman  of  the  syndicate. 


12          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"Four  hundred  thousand,"  remarked  Giles, 
lighting  a  new  cigar  and  stretching  himself  as  if 
waking  up  for  battle. 

That  was  too  much.  The  magnificent  Richfont 
demesne  belonged  to  Old  Giles,  but  at  nearly  ten 
times  its  normal  value.  The  spendthrift  Algernon 
Richfont  now  had  a  pretty  surplus  to  "blow  in"  on 
fashion  and  racing,  and  the  execrated  pirate,  Giles 
Wyndon,  was  firmly  planted  in  the  heart  of  patri 
cian  Bernfield.  There  were  those  who  were  mad 
enough  to  murder  him. 

The  crowd  did  not  at  once  disperse  and  Mar 
garet,  who  was  left  standing  alone  while  her  father 
completed  the  business,  was  the  object  of  many 
hostile  and  even  brutal  glances.  She  was  uncon 
cerned',  but  not  so  the  young  man  who  had  seemed 
half  spectator  half  actor  in  the  scene.  The  blood 
flamed  into  his  face  at  the  insolence  of  the  haughty 
dames  and  gentlemen  toward  this  girl.  He  saun 
tered  over  to  her  and  lifted  his  hat  and  began  to 
speak. 

On  the  way  home  to  the  Steel  Haven  tenement 
Margaret  was  ecstatic.  "Are  we  to  live  in  it, 
father?"  she  asked. 

"Live  in  it,  child !"  exploded  the  man  in  a  pa 
ralysis  of  wonder.  "Sink  all  that  capital  in  mere 
living?" 

The   idea    tickled    him    and   he   laughed    and 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  13 

laughed,  and  Margaret  laughed  too,  just  because 
she  enjoyed  all  her  good  comrade's  moods. 

But  her  question  put  a  new  thought  into  Giles' 
head.  In  the  time  to  elapse  before  his  projects 
with  the  estate  could  fructify  some  one  must  in 
habit  the  mansion,  and  why  not  themselves?  To 
live  disdainfully  among  his  hereditary  foes,  to  cast 
back  hate  in  their  teeth  from  one  of  their  own 
ancient  social  fortresses,  would  be  a  joy  he  had 
not  before  conceived.  The  place  had  come  to 
them  furnished  and  they  need  only  walk  in;  and 
one  day  they  did  so,  taking  simply  their  house 
keeper  and  trunks. 

Margaret  came  and  went  as  before,  acting  as 
Old  Giles'  second  business  self  and  drawing  a 
moderate  salary  from  The  Amalgamated:  for  her 
services.  After  a  time  the  fine  people  ceased  to 
condescend  even  to  stare  their  wooden  rebuke  at 
her.  To  Margaret,  living  strongly  and  happily  in 
her  own  world,  these  Bernfielders  were  invisible. 
There  was  one  person  in  Bernfield  of  whom  she 
thought.  But  the  days  passed  and  in  her  strolls 
through  the  town  and  explorations  of  the  moun 
tain  ways  they  did  not  meet.  The  ordinary  resi 
dents  were  not  given  to  mountain  walks. 

On  the  day  following  the  sale  Philip  Burson 
went  to  the  city  in  the  service  of  his  own  affairs. 
These  were  not  pressing.  He  was  a  lawyer  in  the 


14          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

pink  dawn  of  practice,  with  a  certain  capital  of  his 
own  to  look  after.  It  was  safely  invested  and  the 
work  it  entailed  consisted  in  spending  its  income. 
His  good  connections  would  bring  him  law  some 
time  and  he  was  not  worrying.  While  he  should 
have  been  analyzing  law  books  he  found  himself 
trying  to  construe  the  character  of  a  woman. 

His  reflections  absorbed  him :  "They  say  'illit 
erate'  is  not  the  word,  that  she  is  a  beautiful 
blank  of  civilization;  she  hasn't  the  ideas  called 
culture  they  jam  into  us ;  a  gipsy  or  a  red-blooded 
savage  couldn't  be  freer  of  our  fixed  thoughts — our 
civilized  obsessions.  She  is  a  new  woman  in  real 
ity,  new  all  around,  and  confoundedly  interesting 
as  a  type  that  may  grow  in  protest  against  hack- 
neyism  and  regularity.  Cultured  ladies  and  gen 
tlemen  of  Anglo-Saxon  breed  spoil  for  want  of 
the  salt  of  courage;  they  are  clogged  with  multi 
ple  interests  dragged  up  out  of  the  slimy  past,  and 
their  life  work  is  to  rake  away  at  this  growing  pile 
of  stale  ferment  to  win  fame  by  saying  something 
new  about  it.  We  stumble  ahead  face  backward. 
Why  don't  we  swing  round  and  look  to  the  front 
and  future?  We  are  all  mired — when  we  lift  a 
leg  to  move  forward  the  other  sinks  deeper  and  we 
don't  go.  Yet  one  may  be  free  from  culture  bar 
nacles  without  having  anything  else,  may  be  just 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  T  5 

empty;  the  chances  I  suppose  are  against  Miss 
Wyndon's  having  a  strength  of  her  own." 

Burson's  reveries  usually  ended  this  way,  in 
gloom.  Waking  from  one  of  them,  in  which  his 
judgment  had  triumphed  decisively  against  the 
possibilities  of  one  like  Margaret,  he  took  the 
train  for  Bernfield.  A  college  student  whom  he 
knew  rode  in  the  coach  and  they  sat  together.  The 
young  fellow,  a  junior  just  ascending  into  the  con 
fidence  of  the  outside  college  men  and  gratefully 
strenuous  to  deserve  the  new-horn  respect  for  his 
wisdom,  soon  warmed  to  the  friendly  magnetism 
of  Philip  and  expanded  on  the  affairs  of  the  col 
lege,  chatting  confidentially,  assuming  that  Philip 
was  up  in  the  news,  for  his  name  was  identical  with 
the  higher  Bernfield  aristocracy  and  he  was  inti 
mate  and  popular  with  the  college  hoys,  being  only 
a  little  older. 

What  Philip  gathered  from  his  self-conscious 
reserve  and  energetic  outbursts  was  this :  The  in 
fluential  portion  of  the  student  community  had 
gone  hotly  into  the  quarrel  against  Giles,  their 
anger  being  fanned  by  the  young  ladies  of  the  first 
families  with  whom  they  spent  most  of  the  time 
they  could  filch  from  athletics.  They  might  have 
tolerated  the  old  pagan  but  for  two  circumstances : 
he  did  not  go  to  church,  and  he  and  his  queer 
daughter  made  almost  nightly  parties  at  the  great 


16  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

house  for  the  lowest  riff-raff.,  the  mere  work-people 
of  his  mills.  This  showed  a  mean  nature.,  or  was  it 
a  planned  outrage  on  those  in  the  sensitive  circle 
of  whose  sight  he  had  thrust  himself?  Factory 
wretches  trailing  up  into  the  sacred  portion  of 
town  where  they  could  be  seen,  and  entering  the 
noble  old  Richfont  gates  as  if  they  had  a  right  to, 
was  something  not  to  be  borne.  It  would  ruin  the 
community's  character,  that  is  its  peculiar  supe 
riority  to  other  towns  where  classes  mixed,  and  this 
would  demoralize  the  college,  for  it  was  one  of  the 
allurements  offered  to  unhooked  seekers  of  learn 
ing,  that  half  the  education  of  that  institution  was 
afforded  to  the  students  by  the  generous  intercourse 
of  the  exceptionally  cultivated  families  of  Bern- 
field  and  their  daughters.  There  was  a  moral 
question,  too :  nobody  knew  what  kind  of  a  person 
that  daughter  of  Old  Giles'  might  be.  There  was 
a  good  deal  said  and  suspected.  Already  she  was 
deteriorating  some  of  the  weaker  fellows,  the  poor 
ones,  who  didn't  belong  to  the  fraternities  and  go 
into  good  society.  All  you  had  to  do  was  to  speak 
to  her  and  she  would  speak  back  and  talk  without 
knowing  you.  He  had  tried  it  himself,  just  to 
learn,  and  she  was  fascinating  as  the  devil.  Had 
she  said  anything  out  of  the  way?  Nothing  out 
of  the  way,  but  think  of  a  young  lady  you  could  go 
up  to  and  address,  or  who  might  even  speak  to  you 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  17 

first,  if  she  liked  your  looks;  there  wasn't  much 
lady  about  that.  Just  a  woman  would  have  been 
different.  There  wouldn't  be  a  great  deal  of  cul 
ture  left  in  town  if  she  remained.  And  such  a 
girl  couldn't  have  morality  you  know,  if  you  looked 
on  that  side  of  it. 

Of  course  something  must  be  done  and  it  wa£ 
going  to  be  done  the  next  night.  Only  a  few  were 
onto  it,  fellows  you  could  trust,  but  naturally 
they  wouldn't  have  dared  to  go  ahead  without  the- 
underground  support  of  the  heavy  men  of  the  com 
munity.  These  gentlemen  couldn't  show  their 
hand,  but  if  any  of  the  fellows  got  criminally  ar 
raigned  they  would  back  them  in  the  courts;  if; 
would  be  treated  as  a  college  prank  and  they  would 
be  let  down  easy— a  fine  at  most,  which  the  citizens 
behind  them  would  pay.  They  were  going  to  burn 
the  house  that  old  Wyndon  had  bought,  as  the  sim 
plest  way  of  smoking  the  old  hyena  out. 


1 8  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PHILIP  BURSON  was  one  of  the  leading  citizens 
of  Bernfield,  and  the  youth  who  discoursed  the  pre 
ceding  information  did  not  observe  that  it  was 
new  to  his  listener,  who  had  conversed  incuriously 
as  if  he  had  nothing  to  learn. 

On  the  following  day  an  Indian  summer  sun 
brought  everybody  out  of  doors  and  Burson  spent 
the  morning  greeting  his  friends.  All  of  them 
were  full  of  the  subject  of  the  Wyndons  and  their 
carryings  on,  so  that  wherever  the  talk  began  it 
ended  with  them.  Under  Burson's  keen  banter 
some  of  them  appeared  far  from  comfortable  in 
mind.  These  were  doubtless  privy  to  the  plot. 

Burson  held  a  peculiar  place  in  the  Bernfield 
consciousness.  He  was  different  from  the  rest  in 
the  undoubted  possession  of  brains.  His  inde 
pendence  was  often  scandalous.  They  were  afraid 
of  him,  his  good-natured  badinage  stung.  Never  a 
censor,  they  felt  him  capable  of  outstripping  them 
in  well  or  ill,  they  could  not  sound  his  tendencies, 
he  was  a  puzzle  and  a  favorite.  Some  way  they 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  19 

wanted  his  approval  though  pretending  not  to, 
but  they  were  never  sure  of  it.  The  greater 
breadth  of  his  mental  outlook  was  disturbing  and 
cast  both  a  shadow  and  a  spell  on  them. 

It  was  very  displeasing  to  certain  ones  that  he 
had  come  down  to  Bernfield  at  this  time.  They 
tried  to  put  a  brave  face  on  themselves  and  found 
it  much  harder  to  do  so  than  the  day  before.  But 
the  climax  was  reached  when  Margaret  Wyndon, 
dressed  simply  and  looking  very  beautiful,  was 
joined  on  her  way  to  the  post  office  by  Burson,  and 
then  asked  to  walk  farther,  strolling  by  his  side 
through  the  very  college  grounds  under  the  eyes  of 
all  the  young  men,  turning  the  heads  of  some  well 
up  in  the  social  pitch,  and  then  going  homeward 
among  the  residences  by  other  streets.  The  public 
had  never  suffered  such  a  shock.  Nobody  but 
Philip  Burson  could  have  given  it  to  them. 

The  effrontery  of  the  Wyndon  woman  para 
lyzed  the  feminine  side  of  the  community.  She 
enjoyed  Philip  in  open  street,  dared  to  enjoy  him, 
and  he  talked  to  her  like  an  equal — his  manner 
evidenced  it — as  if  she  were  up  to  him  and  could 
comprehend.  If  only  they  dared  to  resent  it,  but 
who  felt  like  undertaking  to  resent  Burson?  The 
men  looked  cloudy  and  fell  apart  into  groups. 
What  did  Phil  Burson  mean?  Was  he  merely 
performing  to  mystify  them  ?  Had  the  siren  f asci- 


so          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

nated  him  for  the  instant?  Of  course  he  could 
have  nothing  to  do  with  her  long.  Did  he  know 
what  was  in  brew  for  that  night?  One  thing  they 
realized:  Burson  could  not  be  trifled  with,,  and 
disregardful  of  the  fury  against  the  Wyndons  he 
had  publicly  placed  himself  at  their  side.  Was  it 
to  be  taken  as  an  espousal  of  their  cause?  The 
men  did  not  like  to  ask  him. 

At  eleven  o'clock  that  evening  the  moon  set  and 
Philip  Burson  crossed  the  Wyndon  grounds  from 
his  own  place  which  adjoined.  Keeping  in  the 
shadow  of  trees  he  approached  the  house,  with 
which  he  had  been  familiar  from  childhood.  The 
only  point  where  fire  would  successfully  take  was 
in  a  many-angled  frame  extension  somewhat  to 
the  rear,  and  Philip  placed  himself  where  he  could 
command  the  avenues  leading  to  it.  His  post  was 
between  the  mansion  and  a  group  of  thickly  vined 
summer  houses  in  whose  shadow  the  incendiaries 
could  advance  unseen. 

That  night  Margaret  Wyndon  had  retired  to  her 
room  at  an  early  hour.  Throwing  a  long  dark 
cloak  about  her  slim  form  she  had  then  without 
her  father's  knowledge  passed  out  by  a  rear  door 
and  entered  the  labyrinth  of  arbors.  Old  Giles 
sought  his  couch  and  slept  in  solid  peace ;  the  faith 
ful  woman  who  was  their  only  servant  tossed  sleep- 
lessly  on  her  bed.  Only  Margaret  was  aware  that 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  21 

this  woman  had  a  daughter  in  Bern  field,  the 
stenographer  and  general  helper  of  a  Bernfield 
gentleman  with  literary  pretensions,  in  whose 
house  she  lived.  She  had  ambition  herself  to  do 
something  in  letters  and  the  position  was  advan 
tageous.  Knowledge  of  her  mother's  service  with 
the  Wyndons  would  have  caused  her  dismissal,  so 
the  relationship  had  been  concealed.  Her  em 
ployer's  son  was  one  of  the  plotters  against  Giles, 
he  had  convoked  some  of  the  meetings  of  the 
young  conspirators  at  his  home,  and  one  day 
when  alone  at  her  work  in  the  quiet  library,  the 
girl  heard  words  from  the  next  room  that  drew 
her  in  dismay  to  the  slightly  open  door  where  she 
had  learned  the  students'  purposes,  and  had  con 
veyed  them  to  her  mother.  When  Margaret  was 
told  these  facts  she  had  enjoined  the  woman  to 
say  nothing  of  them  to  Giles,  fearing  the  results 
of  his  savage  temper  if  he  should  know.  She 
would  show  herself  to  the  depredators,  and,  of 
course,  they  would  run.  Probably  they  would  be 
masked,  but  as  she  already  knew  the  names  of 
several  through  Mrs.  Eector,  she  could  visit  those 
who  lived  in  town  the  next  day,  and  compel  a 
bonded  guarantee  from  their  parents  that  the  at 
tempt  would  not  be  repeated,  on  pain  of  exposure 
and  legal  action. 

She  had  been   in   concealment   for   some  time 


22          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

when  a  step  ground  slightly  on  the  gravel  and  a 
figure  moved  by  toward  the  house.  Straining  her 
eyes  to  distinguish  it,  and  expecting  others,  she 
prepared  to  move  out  upon  them.  The  man  ad 
vanced  a  few  steps  and  then  paused,  leaning 
against  a  tree.  Although  his  face  was  turned  away 
the  pose  was  unmistakable:  it  was  the  same  that 
had  imprinted  itself  on  her  mind  at  the  sale,  the 
careless  ease  of  Philip  Burson  was  a  vivid  mem 
ory.  Margaret  put  her  hand  before  her  eyes  and 
sank  back  upon  the  seat.  The  man  who  had  arisen 
in  her  life  to  awaken  strange  feelings  of  trust  was 
the  subtlest  traitor,  for  he  could  only  be  there  to 
join  others  in  committing  a  most  dastardly  act. 
She  leaned  her  face  into  her  arms  on  the  railing 
and  gave  way  to  a  great  agony.  Then  she  mas 
tered  herself  and  with  numb  feeling  waited.  For 
a  time  Philip  kept  his  position  by  the  tree  and 
then  approaching  the  arbor  rested  against  it 
hardly  two  feet  from  where  Margaret  was.  His 
features  were  outlined  against  the  night,  and  the 
girl  could  see  them  plainly.  A  moment  before  she 
had  imagined  that  she  hated  him,  but  now  the 
feeling  was  gone ;  there  by  her  side  something  from 
him  pervaded  her  and  it  was  good,  and  then, 
though  proof  had  been  strong  against  him,  she 
would  have  believed  in  him. 

It  was  a  soft  fall  night,    and    all    the    stars 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          23 

beamed  brilliantly.  The  glory  of  the  vision  lifted 
the  young  man's  soul,  quickening  it  to  the  tender 
solicitations  which  seemed  to  come  to  him  from 
every  part  of  that  sublime  still  nature.  Perhaps 
the  motion  of  her  spirit  who  was  by  him  pene 
trated  him  with  its  indefinable  waves.  He 
thought  of  her  compared  with  the  women  of  his 
sphere.  They  had  their  multitude  of  trivial  re 
finements,  graces  one  could  learn,  but  the  great 
refinement,  did  he  know  one  who  had  that?  The 
picture  of  the  tigerish  Bernfield  ladies  at  the  sale, 
women  usually  so  perfectly  modulated,  rose  in  his 
mind — Margaret  Wyndon  was  worlds  their 
superior,  if  he  could  read  women  she  was  one  in 
the  great  sense.  His  strong  face  must  have  re 
vealed  the  swell  of  emotion  that  bore  through  him, 
for  Margaret  with  a  sudden  impulse  reached  out 
her  hand  and  almost  touched  his  hair. 

The  night  wore  on,  and  Philip  kept  his  vigil, 
pacing  backward  and  forward  or  seated  by  the 
summer  house  entrance,  and  the  girl  whose  free 
and  forceful  spirit  had  never  felt  the  need  of  pro 
tection,  watched  him  lovingly  and  felt  protected. 
The  marauders  did  not  come,  and  when  the  morn 
ing  began  to  break  Philip  went  home  to  sleep. 
On  the  two  succeeding  nights  he  resumed  his 
guard,  Margaret,  however,  remaining  indoors, 
stationed  where  she  could  look  out  from  a  window 


24          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

upon  him  and  keep  him  company.  She  could  not 
have  passed  a  second  night  of  such  nearness  with 
out  revealing  her  presence.  Philip  was  now  satis 
fied  that  the  project  had  "been  abandoned,  and  re 
turned  to  his  ordinary  habits. 

Margaret  was  experiencing  a  new  life.  The 
ample  expanse  about  her  home,,  with  its  many 
fresh  autumnal  vistas  was  ceaselessly  fascinating, 
and  won  her  to  long  explorations.  Burson,  wan 
dering  restlessly  among  the  fine  old  elms  of  his 
place,  one  day  came  within  speaking  distance,  un 
expectedly  to  each.  He  crossed  the  barrier  and 
joined  her,  proposing  to  pilot  her  to  an  especially 
lovely  spot.  In  the  depth  of  this  seclusion  there 
was  a  rustic  seat,  and  here  they  talked  until  the 
chill  of  approaching  night  drove  them  in.  With 
out  precise  agreement,  they  met  in  the  same  place 
the  next  day,  afterward  coming  regularly  to  spend 
hours  together. 

They  were  frequently  seen  in  each  other's  com 
pany  on  the  public  streets,  everybody  in  town 
knew  and  severely  commented  on  this ;  only  Giles, 
immersed  in  his  own  concerns,  did  not  know  it. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  25 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OLD  Giles  meanwhile  matured  his  purposes. 
For  years  he  had  been  figuring  to  turn  Bernfield  ^ 
into  a  factory  town,  and  the  scheme  was  near  con 
summation.  The  large  stone  mansion  he  had  pur 
chased  would  be  an  admirable  wing  of  the  exten 
sive  brick  structure  he  intended  to  raise  beside 
it.  The  stream  coursing  through  the  estate  would 
supply  power;  the  encumbering  oaks  and  elms 
should  fall,  and  rows  of  useful  workmen's  dwell 
ings,  brick  and  two  stories  high,  take  their  places. 
He  was  envious  of  the  water  force  wasted,  though 
it  might  have  been  utilized  below  the  little  city. 
But  that  region  was  evilly  sacred  to  him:  he  had 
had  a  mill  there  once,  by  his  hand  there  should 
never  be  another. 

He  meant  to  have  a  good  many  factories  going 
in  Bernfield  before  he  ceased  expanding  it.     The 
first  of  them  would  spoil  the  value  of  adjacent   v/ 
lands  by  half  or  three-fourths,  which  would  be 
rich  for  him;  these  mossed-over  estates  hung  on 


26          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

a  fictitious  thread,  beauty;  he  would  cut  the  cord 
and  plump  them  down  to  plain  productive  level; 
he  would  squeeze  the  emotional  valuation  out  of 
them.  Most  of  their  squeamish,  tissue-paper 
owners  would  not  be  able  to  abide  in  an  atmos 
phere  of  usefulness,  and  he  exulted  in  the  trans 
formation:  place  after  place  would  drop  to  him 
for  a  song;  the  exorbitant  sum  he  had  paid  for 
.,  the  first  had  got  the  wedge  in,  next  would  come 
Burson,  who  might  be  thankful  for  ten  thousand 
for  his  property.  Some  prospective  purchasers  of 
residence  sites  had  already  been  turned  away  from 
Bernfield  by  the  private  tip  of  Giles'  agents. 

There  would  be  opposition,  glorious  intoxicat 
ing  opposition.  Battle  was  what  Giles  fed  on,  it 
made  him  drunk  with  energy.  The  aristocrats 
would  vengefully  resent  his  invasion,  they  would 
fight;  he  thirsted  for  it,  he  would  drag  the  strug 
gle  out  and  mash  them  slowly;  they  should  be 
robbed  of  their  dozing  hamlet  with  its  pretty 
charms  and  proud  exclusiveness. 

Old  Giles  was  ready  for  the  fray.  Inferior 
Bernfield,  the  lower  elements,  as  they  were 
ticketed,  now  well  outnumbered  the  rich  and 
high,  thanks  to  his  process  of  grafting,  and  were 
all  on  his  side.  At  the  local  election  just  gone 
dependents  had  quietly  returned  a  majority 
of  the  councilmen.  If  the  courts  were  petitioned 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  27 

to     intervene.,     the     immense    interests    of    The 
Amalgamated  would  stay  their  hand. 

Giles  had  completed  his  estimates  and  it  only 
remained  to  sign  the  contracts  with  the  builders. 
One  pleasure  had  been  postponed,,  that  of  disclos 
ing  his  magnificent  designs  to  Margaret.  There 
would  be  no  demur — of  course  not,,  she  was  as 
modern  as  himself,  but  he  couldn't  be  blind  to 
some  instincts  of  hers,  apish  tendencies  he  re 
garded  them,  to  wander  among  trees  and  gaze  at 
them.  Moving  to  Bernfield  had  possibly  been  a 
mistake.  Coming  home  from  Steel  Haven  he 
resolved  to  inform  her  of  his  projects  that  very 
afternoon,  and  walking  through  the  classic  ave 
nues,  picturing  'to  his  mind  the  impending  bene 
fits  to  mankind  from  filling  these  idle  thorough 
fares  with  mill  hands  and  factory  operatives,  he 
reflected  that  the  college  structures  would  make  vx 
splendid  woolen  mills,  and  he  speculated  on  what 
the  owners  would  sell  for  later.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  broad  street  some  one  walking  with  a  young 
man  passed  without  noticing  him,  and  Old  Giles 
stopped  stiff  to  gaze  at  them:  it  was  Margaret, 
and  with  her  Philip  Burson.  Then  Giles  Wyndon 
swore,  and  proceeded  home  with  a  strange  conflict 
lowering  in  his  face. 

Twenty  years  before,  Giles  had  been  himself  a 
resident  of  Bernfield.     Having  worked  and  saved  v 


28  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

and  invested,  he  was  at  that  time,  in  his  twentieth 
year,  the  owner  of  three  thousand  dollars.  On  a 
prospecting  tour,  perceiving  the  rich  wasted  forces 
of  the  Bernfield  river,  he  had  raised  twelve 
thousand  more  among  men  who  believed  in  him 
where  he  had  grown  up,  had  adopted  Bernfield  as 
his  new  home  and  erected  a  mill  below  the  town, 
investing  everything  in  it.  In  those  days  the  late 
Potter  Burson,  Philip's  father,  was  the  man  of 
ruling  influence,  being  mayor  of  the  place  and 
weighty  in  State,  industrial,  political  and  social 
interests.  Under  his  guidance  the  village  citizens 
had  rather  encouraged,  at  any  rate,  permitted,  the 
youthful  Giles  to  push  forward  his  schemes  with 
out  warning  or  disapproval,  stretching  his  credit 
to  a  total  of  seventeen  thousand  dollars,  a  big 
sum  of  money  to  him,  on  the  certainty  of  profits 
to  come ;  and  when  all  was  ready  and  the  operatives 
had  arrived  from  a  distance,  they  had  pounced 
down  on  him  and  established  their  ownership  of 
the  river  and  its  tributaries  in  the  entire  town 
ship,  fortifying  themselves  behind  State  legislation 
that  had  been  quietly  got  while  Giles  was  build 
ing. 

Thus  they  had  shrewdly  estopped  his  use  of  the 
stream  when  his  every  resource  was  buried  in  the 
works.  Not  a  dollar  could  he  raise  to  fight  them 
at  law,  not  a  lawyer  could  he  find  to  assume  his 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  29 

case  prospectively.  Giles  was  an  upstart  adven 
turer  before  the  respectability  of  Bernfield,  whose 
influence  with  Bench  and  Bar  was  an  upper  law., 
all-powerful,  and  the  people  of  consequence  over 
the  State — for  the  matter  roused  wide  interest — re 
joiced  in  his  suppression. 

The  mill  was  dismantled  to  pay  a  percentage 
on  the  debts,  and  Giles  Wyndon  found  himself 
a  bankrupt  ruined  in  business  reputation,  just 
when  the  worst  of  his  hardships  seemed  to  be 
clearing  away. 

Margaret  was  born  a  little  while  after  the  col 
lapse  came.  It  was  a  period  of  savage  stress  to 
the  young  husband  and  wife;  with  nothing  to 
live  on  and  triumphant  hostility  greeting  them 
everywhere  they  were  hounded  by  vicious  creditors 
who  charged  Giles  with  fraud  and  tripped  him  in 
every  effort  to  gain  a  new  footing  even  of  the  hum 
blest  kind.  He  was  forced  to  leave  his  wife  and 
go  where  he  was  unknown  to  find  the  lowest  day 
labor  and  earn  bread.  He  believed  that  his  Bern- 
field  enemies  had  moved  the  creditors  to  this  base 
persecution. 

While  he  was  away,  his  lovely  young  wife  died, 
destroyed,  Giles  vowed,  by  the  iniquitous  malice 
of  these  inquisitors.  Hurrying  home  distraught 
by  grief  and  feverish  rage,  Giles  had  confronted 
his  chief  antagonist,  charging  him  with  murder- 


3O          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ing  his  wife  with  his  barbarous  cruelty  and  de 
manding  the  inside  reasons  for  such  hate.  Giles 
was  hardly  more  than  an  impulsive  boy,  preco- 
v.,  cious  only  on  the  patriotic  get-on-in-the-world 
side;  his  character  was  unformed;  but  he  was 
trying  to  open  his  eyes  to  the  wonders  of  des 
tiny,  and  affliction  was  doing  its  usual  work. 

Before  him  in  the  elegant  parlor  of  his  home, 
whither  Giles  had  come,  sat  Potter  Burson,  the 
deep,  immaculate  man  of  the  world,  his  steel-cold 
penetrating  look  forcing  into  Giles  a  bitter  con 
sciousness  of  his  own  manifold  incapacities.  But 
if  implacable  and  sometimes  inhumanly  stern  in 
his  purposes,  Burson's  intelligence  was  too  large 
and  self-reliant  for  him  to  trifle  with  himself  or 
others.  Without  a  particle  of  feeling  or  a  reserva 
tion,  he  dissected  the  situation  before  Giles  Wyn- 
don  as  if  the  latter  were  free  from  part  or  in 
terest  in  it. 

"You  are  a  crude  youth  or  I  should  not  have 
to  explain  to  you,"  Burson  began  slowly.  "You 
entered  business  of  your  free  will,  did  you  not? 
What  right  have  you  to  cry  when  you  get  hurt? 
Is  business  a  missionary  society,  or  a  hospital? 
Did  you  suppose  men  were  in  business  to  do  good  ? 
To  love  others?  I  can  inform  you  they  are  there 
to  smash  others  and  elevate  themselves.  All  can't 
rise.  Rising  is  right,  crushing  others  to  rise  on 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          31 

their  commercial  corpses  is  right,  for  rising 
couldn't  occur  without  it.  It's  war.  War  is  hell. 
Hell  is  bloody  and  foul  and  cruel.  There's  no 
love  in  war,  it's  all  hate — that's  also  business. 
Do  you  go  to  war  in  a  swallow-tail  and  carry  your 
feelings  in  your  shirt-bosom?  What  kind  of  a 
soldier  would  you  make  if  you  did  that? 

"But  hell  and  blood  and  dirt  and  cruelty  are 
not  sweet  things  to  live  in  all  the  time.  Men  of  taste 
and  station  want  variety,  a  little  respite  from  hell ; 
some  of  us  even  would  be  glad  if  the  blood  and 
hell  and  filth  could  be  dispensed  with.  We  don't 
see  how  they  can  be  in  this  world,  so  we  must 
put  up  with  them  and  use  them  for  our  good  as 
God  Almighty  intended.  It's  bad  for  the  other 
fellow,  but  God  evidently  intended  that  too. 
Nevertheless,  we  can  have  oases  where  we  don't' 
see  hell  and  cruelty  in  action,  and  that's  the  aim 
of  the  cultivated  and  religious.  The  proper  or 
dering  of  life  is  the  limitation  of  business  battles 
to  battle-fields,  and  not  letting  them  reach  all 
/  places  like  a  stench;  keeping  the  dead  and 
wounded,  the  filth  and  garbage,  out  of  sight  as 
much  as  possible.  The  modern  world  allows  re 
finement  to  one  side  of  nature  only — the  commer 
cial  side  can't  be  refined,  so  that  absolute  separa 
tion  of  the  two  is  the  choice  of  wise  men. 

"Bernfield  was  built  as  a  haven  of  escape  from 


32          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

commercial  hell.  When  we  retire  here,  it's  to 
forget  the  foulness  of  active  life  in  which  we  have 
to  pound  and  scratch  when  we  return  to  the  mart. 
y  You  undertook  to  bring  the  mart  down  here  and 
that's  your  crime.  In  the  industrial  battle  camp 
we're  no  better  than  you  or  anybody  else,  we're 
all  black  as  tar  and  mean  as  sin ;  but  here  we  are 
better,  for  your  nature  has  only  one  side,  the 
battle,  dirt,  blood  side;  you're  one  who  would 
make  every  spot  in  the  world  a  Hell-Common  for 
trade  and  profit.  We  hate  your  kind  and  will 
prison  you  into  limits — though  your  whole  nature 
is  exactly  counterpart  of  half  our  nature,  and  we 
know  it.  To  crush  you  when  you  crawl  out  of 
your  sphere  is  our  purpose,  to  maim  you  so  that 
you'll  not  come  again — as  we  did. 

"And  we  use  war  ways,  the  necessary  universal 
all-hate  and  murder-wide  ways  of  the  mart,  to  do 
it.  There  are  some  elements  of  hell  in  this  process, 
several  of  them.  Quite  true ;  finding  a  number  of 
such  elements  in  commerce  we  take  the  right  to 
fence  ourselves  off  from  them  somewhere  and  save 
an  acre  where  they  don't  reign,  nor  do  we  fear  to 
use  the  ways  of  hell  to  guard  that  acre,  we  prize 
the  taste  of  better  things  so  highly. 

"If  this  statement  isn't  in  the  track  of  your  un 
derstanding  let  me  offer  you  a  perfectly  tangible 
thought.  We  refined  people  know  that  mill  life  is 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          33 

beastly  and  brutalizing,  that  those  who  follow  it 
can't  help  being  beastly  and  brutal.  Yet  it  must  v 
go  on,  for  we  couldn't  be  refined  if  it  did  not. 
We  get  our  wealth  from  it,  which  is  the  nursing- 
bottle  of  refinement;  without  its  milk,  which  is 
the  beastly  and  brutal  toil  of  others,  refinement 
would  cease.  But  do  you  think  we  shall  tolerate 
having  these  facts  under  our  nostrils?  slapped 
daily  into  our  faces  ? 

"Do  you  imagine  that  a  man  of  true  feeling  is 
happy  among  these  deformed  operatives,  or  can 
endure  living  where  the  debased  creatures  swarm 
the  streets?  They  flaunt  his  crimes  in  his  face.y" 
It  is  the  requirement  of  a  developed  nature  to  put 
ugliness  and  wretchedness  out  of  sight,  and  we 
find  the  economically  necessary  wretchedness  much 
more  offensive  than  the  accidental,  because  we 
cause  it." 

Giles  passed  from  youth  to  manhood  in  this  in 
terview.  His  life  had  been  free  from  domineer 
ing  purpose ;  he  had  worked  and  adopted  industry 
as  the  needful  thing  for  a  competence,  but  with 
no  absorbing  ambition  for  power  or  riches;  now 
all  the  rugged  forces  of  his  nature  set  in  an  iron  / 
resolution ;  and  he  let  himself  out  in  speech  which 
bore  fiercely  over  Burson  and  made  him  quail : 

"You  have  opened  my  eyes  to  the  hell  of  life 
and  your  glad  part  in  it.     You,  Potter  Burson, 


34          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

man  of  refinement  and  murder;  yon  killed  my 
wife  as  straight  and  sure  as  if  you  had  stabbed  her 
heart  through.  Do  you  think  I'll  forgive  you  or 
yours  or  let  you  rest?  From  now  till  death  I'll 
spend  my  powers  to  rip  and  tear  you  out  of  this 
spot  of  paradise  where  you  flee  from  ugliness  and 
plot  the  damnation  of  others.  I  see  I  never  un 
derstood  things,  the  great  principles  of  human 
society ;  I  do  now ;  you've  given  me  the  key  to  your 
kind  and  my  force  and  hate  shall  hunt  them  down. 
Culture  is  the  mask  you  shrewdest  fiends  put  on 
to  trick  and  spoil  the  world.  I'll  rip  it  off  of  you 
and  lay  you  bare  for  those  you  fool  and  mock  to 
trample  you." 

Saying  this,  Giles  Wyndon  strode  from  the 
room  and  house. 

Potter  Burson  was  neither  a  moral  nor  physical 
coward,  yet  after  this  scene  he  was  for  a  long 
time  disturbed.  A  young  man  whom  he  had 
despised  and  thought  to  snuff  out  and  end  had 
loomed  before  his  eyes  into  a  figure  of  danger 
ous  strength.  It  is  unpleasant  for  even  the  strong 
to  have  implacable  enemies.  Had  he  understood 
his  man  earlier,  or  tried  to  understand  him — but 
the  boyish  face  with  the  large,  trusting,  innocent 
eyes,  how  could  he  have  gone  behind  it  to  discover 
the  smouldering  fires  of  practical  genius  and  in 
vincible  will?  For  in  their  brief  defiant  colloquy 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          35 

Bursom  had  seen  his  enemy  with  a  flash  of  inspira 
tion  and  recognized  the  qualities  of  the  commercial 
giant.  Then  he  would  rather  have  had  almost 
any  one  he  knew  opposed  to  him  than  this  ignorant 
youth,,  denuded  of  every  material  help. 


36          The  Monarch   Billionaire. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

THE  shipping  interests  of  Bernfield  Harbor,  as 
the  river  mouth  was  then  called,  were  owned  in 
those  days  by  the  wealthy  families  of  Bernfield. 
Potter  Burson  was  the  proprietor  of  a  ship-yard 
there  and  heavy  share  holder  in  a  line  of  freighters 
plying  on  the  ocean.  Ten  years  after  the  meeting 
described  in  Potter  Burson's  house  this  line  passed 
over  to  The  Amalgamated;  soon  after  the  ship 
building  works  followed  to  the  same  bourne,  and 
Potter  Burson,  with  a  number  of  the  old-school 
Bernfield  gentlemen,  retired  from  business  on  the 
seas  and  invested  the  shrunken  assets  from  their 
shipping  properties  in  other  and  they  hoped  more 
lucrative  sources  of  income.  Old  Giles  Wyndon — 
he  was  already  long  denominated  Old  Giles — had 
frozen  them  out,  and  the  deep  successful  man  of 
commercial  genius  celebrated  his  victory  by  sever- 
ing  Bernfield  Harbor  from  its  verbal  association 
with  Bernfield  and  giving  it  the  imposing  title  of 
Steel  Haven. 

All  the  world  around  had  watched  this  huge 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  37 

ten-years'  prize-fight  between  the  old-school  Ti 
tans  and  the  single-handed  new-day  pugilist  with  v* 
keen  relish.  Giles  had  routed  them  hy  the  intro 
duction  of  larger  and  swifter  vessels.  He  had 
slashed  freight  charges  down  below  cost  and  caught 
their  trade  in  every  port,  defraying  his  vessel  losses 
from  the  profits  of  other  industries  already  tabu 
lated  in  long  schedule  under  the  Amalgamated 
Fish,  Ship,  Iron,  Transportation,  Coal  and  Steel 
Company. 

It  had  been  ten  years  of  cankering  strain  on 
Potter  Burson.  They  were  irremediable.  In  those 
years  he  never  got  away  from  business  cares,  and 
Bernfield  with  infernal  mockery  soon  ceased  to  be 
the  haven  of  rest  and  strength  that  he  had  found 
it.  He  had  seen  Giles  Wyndon,  the  raw  youth  he 
once  imagined  he  had  blotted  out,  mount  into  the 
firmament  and  remain  there,  while  he  and  those 
he  led,  in  spite  of  superhuman  efforts,  had  fallen  ^ 
earthward.  It  had  hurt  his  health,  and  the  sense 
of  being  the  personal  creator  of  that  monster 
Giles  and  the  marplot  of  his  own  life,  started  a 
wearing  inward  sore.  The  Bernfield  gentry  in 
vested  what  they  had  rescued  from  their  ocean 
enterprises  in  other  fields,  but  the  centre  of  gravity 
of  the  financial  world  had  shifted  and  their  weight 
was  no  longer  predominant ;  although  still  opulent 
the  newer  men  were  out-marching  them. 


38  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

After  his  signal  triumph  Giles  seemed  quiescent 
toward  Bernfield,  devoting  his  strength  to  amass 
ing  great  new  enterprises  under  The  Amalgamated. 
Was  he  placated  by  the  painful  evidence  of  Pot 
ter  Burson's  weakening  frame,  as  the  years  went 
by,  that  the  shaft  had  struck  home  ?  Before  Giles 
moved  a  second  time  against  his  Bernfield  adver 
saries,  Burson  died,  at  a  period  of  life  when  his 
powers  should  have  been  at  their  ripest.  On  the 
afternoon  of  Burson's  grand  funeral,  Giles  drove 
alone  to  a  little  neglected  cemetery  where  Mar 
garet's  mother  lay,  but  what  he  thought  or  did 
there  no  one  knows.  Perhaps  he  vowed  again  to 
wipe  out  the  beauty  of  Bernfield  and  sweep  away 
its  ancient  families,  and  if  so  on  this  day  of 
his  resolution  to  acquaint  his  daughter  with  his 
grand  plans  the  vow  was  about  to  be  kept. 

Hence  the  strange  terror  of  his  emotions  on  see 
ing  Margaret  walking  publicly  as  if  in  established 
friendship  with  the  son  of  his  fallen  but  unfor- 
given  enemy. 

He  went  home  with  set  teeth,  his  thoughts  strik 
ing  him  like  trip-hammers.  There  was  no  anger 
in  him  toward  his  daughter;  he  had  scrupulously 
concealed  from  her  the  facts  of  his  great  life  mo 
tive  and  no  fault  was  in  her ;  but  if  this  fatuity  of 
his  should  now  cause  her  to  rise  in  his  way — .  It 
was  impossible ;  Burson,  with  his  layers  of  culture, 


The  Monarch  Billionaire,  39 

could  only  be  amusing  himself  with  a  girl  like 
Margaret,  who  was  utterly  barren  of  it  all.  He 
steeled  himself  in  his  conviction  that  her  child-like 
ignorance  of  whatever  people  in  the  fine  world 
prize  would  save  her  and  conspire  with  him. 

When  Margaret  came  in,  Giles  called  her  to  him 
seeking  information  in  her  face  and  focusing  all 
his  native  shrewdness  upon  her.  She  was  not  a 
commercial  problem  and  no  constructive  insight 
rewarded  him.  Her  remarkable  beauty  struck  him 
as  never  before. 

"Margaret,  love,"  he  said  very  kindly,  almost 
pleadingly,  "don't  let  it  go  that  way.  Philip  Bur- 
son  doesn't  want  you  for  his  wife;  he  is  only 
amusing  himself  with  you,  and  if  he  were  true 
and  honest  about  it,  I  would  rather  see  you  marry 
a  seaman  out  of  my  ships,  a  man  of  work  and  life, 
or  a  plain  honest  mill  hand  from  our  mills,  than 
him.  This  one  isn't  true  and  sound  in  at  the 
core,  his  kind  ain't — you  don't  know  what  I  do, 
I've  dealt  with  them.  Meanness,  treachery,  pride  ^ 
are  mixed  with  their  varnish  more  than  half ;  cul 
ture  is  just  like  a  sweet  syrup  mixed  in  with  the 
poison  to  cover  its  nature  and  make  it  seem  good. 
Marry  a  man  whose  ancestors  haven't  corrupted 
him,  one  of  your  own  kind.  I'll  find  him,  a 
straight  workman  who  has  risen,  who  didn't  have 
the  accursed  education  which  pretends  to  broaden 


40  The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

men's  hearts  and  befouls  all  the  heart  they  have. 
Don't  you  know  you're  a  fool  to  that  elegant  set? 
You've  none  of  the  stuff  in  you  that's  everything 
to  them ;  you'd  die  of  heart-break  with  one  of  them, 
for  he  would  be  ashamed  of  you  right  off  and  hate 
you.  Which  do  you  believe  in  most,  child,  those 
new  clothed-up  chaps  who  come  cooing  and  lying 
for  the  money  they  think  you  have  and  would  only 
take  you  as  dross  thrown  in,  or  Old  Giles,  whose 
rough  heart  would  almost  break,  it  really  would, 
if  you  married  one  of  them?" 

Margaret  put  her  arms  about  his  neck  and  kissed 
him  with  the  impulse  of  unshakable  love. 

"We  have  been  as  one,  father/'  she  gladdened 
him,  "and  will  always  be  so.  I'll  never  marry  a 
man  you  don't  believe  in,  one  you  think  is  insin 
cere,  no  matter  how  much  I  love  him." 

Something  loosened  in  Old  Giles'  heart  which 
for  many  years  had  been  hard  and  tight.  The  in 
nocent  hours  and  feelings  of  his  life  with  a  young 
\voman  whom  Margaret  to-day  vividly  recalled, 
feelings  that  were  before  he  had  linked  himself 
\riih  nature's  awful  retributive  forces,  seemed  to 
revive. 

He  kissed  the  lovely  face,  comforting  him  with 
its  large  trusting  eyes,  with  deep  feeling.  "You 
are  the  best  woman  God  ever  made,"  he  said,  "ex 
cept  one.  And  you'll  find  that  I'm  acting  to  pro- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire  41 

tect  you.  You'll  learn  that  what  I  say  of  Burson 
is  true.  A  man  can't  help  his  nature  from  showing 
out,  if  you  watch  for  it,  and  this  one  will  show 
his.  You'll  see." 

ILr  pressed  her  tenderly  in  his  massive  arms, 
caressing  her  like  a  little  child. 

Margaret's  love  for  this  strange  being  was  some 
thing  very  different  from  ordinary  family  affection. 
Business  life  had  taught  her  the  vigorous  use  of 
her  mind,  so  that  she  could  reason  as  well  as  feel ; 
in  the  years  of  their  intimacy  the  two  had  been 
companions  free  from  the  usual  consciousness  of 
father  and  child,  for  Giles,  early  discerning  his 
ineptitude  as  a  parent,  had  taken  up  the  little 
thing  as  a  play  fellow,  and  thus  she  came  to  know 
him  as  a  keen  young  mind  in  that  natural  relation 
can  know  the  one  closest,  and  to  love  and  trust 
him  with  a  passion  rooted  in  her  knowledge. 

She  was  equal  to  what  might  come.  Love  had 
never  been  the  theme  between  her  and  Philip ;  she 
could  go  on  meeting  him  as  they  had  done,  in  the 
free  way  that  was  so  good.  She  would  not  ask 
herself  whether  it  meant  love,  or  if  his  nature  was 
what  it  seemed ;  now  at  least  it  was  good  to  be  with 
him — it  was  good,  it  was  good,  the  best  of  life 
yet.  And  day  by  day  they  lived  the  hours  together 
among  the  elms,  happy  as  the  beings  of  a  golden 


42  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

age,  though  Margaret  was  more  observing  than  be 
fore. 

Old  Giles  was  now  sure  of  his  way.  When  the 
announcement  came  upon  the  public  that  he  was 
preparing  to  turn  the  grand  old  Richfont  home 
stead  into  a  factory,  it  was  like  the  opening  of 
a  volcano  in  the  heart  of  town.  The  infuriated 
united  voice  of  the  best  set,  the  law  and  order 
guarding  people  of  the  community,  was  lifted  up 
for  vengeance  and  physical  violence.  By  common 
agreement  killing  was  the  mildest  compromise  for 
such  a  reprobate,  if  it  could  be  done  properly — 
without  identifying  the  act  with  the  doer.  While 
the  storm  was  raging  with  ungovernable  fury  a 
couple  of  circumstances  arose  which  checked  its 
progress  toward  the  physical  destruction  of  Giles. 
The  authentic  information  spread  that  Giles  car 
ried  weapons,  and  stories  of  his  accomplished  hand 
ling  of  brutal  men  who  had  faced  him  with  num 
bers  seasoned  the  news.  Much  worse,  the  canaille 
of  Bernfield  had  spontaneously  crystallized  into  a 
mass  meeting,  strengthened  by  crowds  of  their  fel 
low  operatives  from  Steel  Haven,  and  amid  shocks 
of  ugly  turbulence  and  lawless  threats  had  resolved 
that  if  a  hair  of  Giles'  head  suffered  injury  they 
would  storm  the  aristocratic  quarter  and  avenge 
him  on  every  man  they  found. 

The  gentry  were  scandalized  into  paralysis  by 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  43 

r 

the  outrageousncss  of  a  mob  of  miserables  daring 
to  mention  force,  and  a  message  was  sent  to  the 
governor  for  state  troops  to  bore  the  elements  of 
duty  into  them,  which  Giles  however  counter 
manded.  Failing  here  it  was  considered  unsalu- 
tary  by  the  ethical  upper  classes  to  swagger  further 
with  the  weapon  of  lawlessness,  and  they  stoutly 
disclaimed  having  thought  of  violence  at  any  time 
— which  was  taken  at  its  worth  by  the  slum  people, 
but  had  an  appeasing  effect,,  transferring  the  battle 
to  council  chambers,  where  the  quietly  formed 
Wyndon  majority  discovered  itself  and  gave  a  ver-  v 
diet  to  Giles.  It  went  to  the  courts,  and  here  his 
victory  through  the  enormous  influence  of  The 
Amalgamated  Fish,  Ship,  Iron,  Transportation,  ~ 
Coal  and  Steel  Company  was  as  'certain.  The  day 
of  old  memorial  families  in  that  section  of  the 
world  was  seen  painfully  drawing  to  an  end,  and 
the  great  living  Amalgamated  was  hailed  lord. 

Margaret  was  hardly  conscious  of  what  was  go 
ing  on.  Her  life  at  this  time  seemed  to  contain 
nothing  beyond  the  hours  with  Philip  and  the  de 
licious  after-reveries  upon  them  when  she  was 
alone.  Her  thoughts  and  dreams  and  feelings  came 
from  new  worlds  within  her,  to  whose  glad  en 
ticement  she  radiantly  abandoned  herself.  Philip 
too  was  passive  to  outward  events,  bringing  very 
hard  sayings  down  upon  him  from  his  own  class. 


44          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

He  was  a  degenerate  son  of  his  father,  they  fumed, 
who  schemed  for  sordid  profit  from  the  town's 
ruin  by  marrying  the  vulgar  plebeian  heiress.  His 
constancy  proved  that  nothing  less  than  marriage 
was  his  design.  He  might  have  been  satisfied  with 
the  usual  thing  between  high  and  low  ranks. 
There  are  sanctioned  codes  of  association  for  gen 
tlemen  with  women  without  desecrating  the  holy 
shrine  of  matrimony.  Social  dignity  and  public 
duty  modify  not  ten  but  a  hundred  command 
ments,  where  there  are  a  hundred.  Such  mar 
riages  unsettle  nature.  How  cruelly  he  shattered 
the  great  reputabilities  and  virtues!  The  higher 
interests,  high  thinking  and  high  feeling,  the  cul 
tivation  of  everything  choice,  the  very  preservation 
of  fine  morals  and  moral  aims,  in  an  artistic  sense, 
even  the  revered  institution  of  the  family  as  it 
should  be,  supported  by  the  two  props  of  social 
parity,  he  had  pitched  them  all  away  for  the  wealth 
of  a  low-souled  girl  with  base  progenitors.  At  a 
private  caucus  of  the  undisputed  ladies  on  the 
subject,  a  point  of  great  weight  had  been  settled: 
she  was  not  pretty.  If  poor  Potter  Burson,  that 
true  patrician  and  dear  man,  were  alive  to  correct 
or  disown  this  ingrate  progeny! 

These  people  despised  money,  in  the  possession 
of  others.  They  did  not  give  their  own  away,  those 
who  were  not  intently  klle  spent  what  brains  they 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          45 

had  in  trying  to  get  more  of  it.  They  said  they, 
despised  it,  and  of  course  each  believed  the  other 
when  he  said  it. 

Old  Giles  thought  of  Burson  quite  as  they  did. 
He  detested  him  as  one  scant  of  heroism  to 
fight  as  his  father  had  fought,  and  was  resolved  to 
give  him  no  mercy. 


46  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 

BUT  one  morning  a  new  amazement  came  upon 
the  town.  In  glaring  type  the  papers  exploded 
the  information  that  The  Great  Fish,  Ship,  Iron, 
Transportation,  Coal  and  Steel  Company  was  em 
barrassed;  fast  after  which  in  an  extra  they  elec 
trified  the  inhabitants  by  printing  that  failure 
with  very  bad  developments  was  certain.  Giles 
had  mismanaged,  the  blame  was  his,  and  the  joy 
of  patrician  Bernfield  soared  to  frenzy.  The  fear 
ful  nightmare  having  lifted,  the  people  let  them 
selves  go  in  primitive  vociferation,  with  a  con 
quering  note  over  all  of  braying  horns  from  the 
college  students,  who  marched  about  the  streets 
in  long  single  files  with  hands  on  one  another's 
shoulders  tearing  the  peaceful  ether  to  tatters  with 
tin  trumpets.  The  gloom  on  the  slum  quarter  was 
of  a  density  that  no  rumbles  of  retaliation  stirred. 
The  arch  vandal  was  fallen,  the  historic  grandeur 
of  the  noble  old  town  saved. 

Then  citizens  held  their  breath  as  more  deeply 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          47 

portentous  insinuations  were  whispered.  First 
stealthily,  then  broadly  and  insultingly,  it 
spread  that  Old  Giles  Wyndon  was  accused 
of  fraud  by  the  partners  of  the  great  Amal 
gamated  now  in  the  dust.  Facts  leaked  out 
rapidly,  everything  that  was  said  was  now 
authority.  Giles  had  borrowed  an  aggregate  ^ 
of  enormous  sums  from  poor  widows  and  orphans, 
and  from  capitalists  who  wanted  an  income 
devoid  of  carking  thoughts  of  industrial  en 
terprises,  being  occupied  with  yachts  and  golf. 
His  cruelty  to  these  helpless  ones  was  like  coal 
oil  on  the  fires  of  popular  indignation,  though 
many  said  the  poor  widows  and  orphans  had  been 
swindled  so  many  times  by  their  borrowers  that 
they  ought  to  be  used  to  it  now,  but  the  shock 
would  be  more  cruel  and  terrible  to  the  innocent  ¥ 
capitalists.  The  big  men  of  the  company  were 
concerting  to  bring  their  recreant  manager  to  the 
criminal  bar,  causing  Old  Giles'  arrest  to  be  hourly 
looked  for,  while  strange  individuals  appeared  in 
town  to  verify  the  story  by  shadowing  him  to 
prevent  his  escape.  They  were  known  to  be  secret 
service  men,  for  they  told  the  citizens  they  were 
detectives. 

The  delight  of  men,  women,  children,  and  col 
lege  students  in  the  finishing  discomfiture  of  Philip 
Burson  was  such  as  no  one  who  has  not  spent  the 


48          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

greater  part  of  his  life  in  a  moderate  sized  but 
intensely  cultivated  community  can  describe. 

Giles  bore  his  leonine  head  stiffly  erect  as  this 
ordeal  progressed,  being  seen  in  public  more  than 
usual,  showing  the  hard-jawed  defiance  predestined 
by  his  attributes.  Some  might  have  thought  he 
was  enjoying  it,  if  they  had  studied  him  a  little, 
but  all  were  too  delirious  for  that.  The  one  who 
suffered  was  Margaret.  Giles  was  very  sombre  be 
fore  her.  The  lost  money  she  felt  to  be  nothing, 
for  no  greed  was  in  her  composition,  but  to  see 
her  father  hurt  and  maligned  bruised  her  painfully. 
The  charge  that  he  had  done  wrong  was  at  that 
time  ridiculously  impossible  to  her  mind;  she 
strengthened  him  with  her  scorn  of  the  accusers, 
hiding  her  smart.  In  these  days  she  went  no 
longer  to  her  trysting  place  with  Philip. 

The  blackness  that  gathered  on  Giles'  character 
was  all  detailed  in  the  daily  prints,  for  the  news 
papers  once  given  the  scent  burrowed  assiduously 
for  animated  copy  among  the  myriad  talkers  who 
had  an  evil  story  to  wing  against  the  crippled 
deity. 

"If  I  have  to  go  to  jail,  Margaret ?"  Giles 

questioned  one  day. 

"I'll  go  into  commerce,  with  the  training  you've 
given  me,  to  pay  the  debts  and  expose  the  villainy 
that  sends  you  there." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  49 

"I  always  told  you  that  you  were  an  abler  busi 
ness  man  than  I,"  he  broke  out  with  strange 
laughter. 

"She  needs  activity  in  this  crisis,"  Giles  divined, 
and  he  contrived  a  mission  for  her  to  New  York. 
The  papers  noted  her  departure,  and  hoped  the 
right  parties  would  scrutinize  her  travels  and  trans 
actions. 

That  evening  Philip  Burson  sent  his  name  in 
to  Giles. 

"Well,"  demanded  Old  Giles  acidly,  "what  is 
it?" 

"I  have,"  said  the  young  man,  "five  hundred 
thousand  dollars  beside  my  place.  That  in  your 
eyes  is  probably  a  trifling  sum,  but  if  it  can  assist 
you  in  any  way  in  your  present  difficulty  I  wish  to 
place  it  at  your  disposal." 

Giles  made  a  queer  sound  suggestive  of  an  oath 
or  something  else. 

"Look  here,"  he  flamed  out  harshly,  "are  you  a 
fool,  or  what  am  I  to  call  you  ?  I've  had  my  mind 
bent  on  taking  all  you  have  out  of  you,  and  now 
when  I  lose  the  power  to  do  it  you  come  here  and 
throw  yourself  at  me  to  be  crushed.  Do  you  know  v' 
they're  proving  me  to  be  a  swindler?  Have  you 
got  a  shrewd  hope  you'll  make  something  out  of 
this?  You  won't.  I  hated  your  father,  and  I 
hate  you  as  his  son;  you've  got  his  nature,  only 


50          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

weaker.     You  never  made  a  cent  for  yourself,  did 


you?  Five  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  save  a 
thing  like  The  Amalgamated!  Ha!  Ha!  Ha! 
Put  your  pennies  in  your  pocket,  boy,  or  you'll 
never  see  them  again." 

"It  is  nonsense  to  talk  of  your  being  a  swindler 
— in  the  ordinary  sense.  I  have  some  insight  into 
men  if  I'm  not  a  commercial  giant. " 

"Ho,  you  have,  have  you !  Ho,  you  have ! 
What  do  you  know  about  old  gnarled  knots  like  me, 
a  stripling  like  you?  But  Til  take  your  chicken 
feed,  I'll  take  it !  Make  your  substance  over  be 
fore  you  change  your  mind,  what  there  is  of  it — 
your  mind.  It  won't  save  me,  nor  it  won't  help 
me,  but  I'll  throw  it  in  to  spite  my  creditors,  just 
a  driblet  to  tantalize  'em,  he,  he.  And  you  won't 
miss  it,  with  your  mind.  What'll  your  house 
fetch?" 

"Thirty  thousand  under  pressure,  but  it's  worth 
fifty  or  sixty." 

"All  right,  all  right,  get  the  papers  ready.  I'll 
give  you  a  dollar  for  it ;  you're  a  provident  young 
ster  for  these  times,  quite  commercial ;  you'll  make 
a  cheerful  pauper,  and  what  a  lawyer !" 

Philip  took  from  his  pocket  the  papers  trans 
ferring  his  various  holdings  and  handed  them  to 
Giles,  his  strong  fibres  tense  under  the  force  of 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  51 

will  that  held  him   from   resenting  the   lashing 
words. 

Giles  saw  and  relished  the  chastisement  he  was 
inflicting,  and  after  examining  the  documents 
critically  for  flaws,  continued  in  the  same  biting 
tone: 

"Do  you  give  away  your  property  to  everybody 
like  this  ?  Business  would  be  easy  if  business  men 
were  like  you." 

"Under  certain  circumstances  I  do." 

"What  circumstances  ?" 

"Twenty  years  ago  my  father  did  you  a  great 
wrong.  Latterly  he  recounted  all  the  circumstances 
to  me,  including  your  interview  at  his  house. 
Afterward  I  think  he  broadened,  and  was  sorry 
for  what  he  had  done,  but  the  enmity  was  fixed, 
and  there  was  no  remedy.  The  trouble  you  made 
him  may  have  been  his  teacher,  most  men,  however, 
do  not  learn  even  from  trouble.  You  were  wealthy 
and  had  you  not  failed  I  could  probably  have  done 
nothing.  I  can  now  clear  away  an  ill  family 
record,  and  start  in  the  world  without  commercial 
stain/' 

"Yes,  you  thought  I  was  rich.  The  company 
I'm  agent  for  was  rich,  but  it  doesn't  follow  I 
was." 

Old  Giles  rose,  taking  the  papers  from  his 
pocket  he  flung  them  back  to  Philip. 


52  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"Suppose  I  don't  intend  to  have  the  family  feud 
settled  that  way  ?"  he  demanded,  glaring  savagely. 

"There  is  only  one  other  way  I  can  suggest/' 
answered  the  young  man  evenly. 

"What  way?" 

"By  my  marrying  your  daughter." 

Giles  took  a  threatening  step  forward,  his  hands 
clenched.  "Damn  you/'  sounded  from  his  rigid 
lips,  "I  know  that's  what  it's  all  for.  You  want 
to  buy  her.  The  girl's  penniless.  She's  ignorant ! 
Reading's  a  trial  to  her !  She  hasn't  a  single  one 
of  your  social  tricks  that  make  your  whited  set 
glamorous.  Her  name  is  blackened  by  mine.  You 
never  would  love  her,  I  don't  want  you  to  love  her ! 
Hate  her,  and  let  her  alone,  go  away,  she's  not 
of  your  breed — your  all-f or-self  and  hell-for-others 
breed/' 

Giles'  steel-sinewed  frame  strove  and  swayed 
under  the  climax  of  struggle  with  this  long-mas 
tering  emotion,  and  a  chord  of  almost  pathetic 
pleading  mingled  with  the  harsh  resentment. 

"I  desire  to  marry  your  daughter,"  repeated 
Philip  Burson,  "and  it  would  also  please  me  after 
what  you  have  said  to  knock  you  down." 

Old  Giles  regained  his  firmness.  He  remem 
bered  his  pact  with  Margaret,  it  must  be  kept. 

"Well — you  can  have  her,  then — if  she  wants 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  53 

you."     The   words  seemed  to  wrench  themselves 
from  him,  tearing  and  gashing  him. 

He  wrote  a  New  York  address.  "You'll  find 
her  there" — shoving  it  toward  Philip,  "and  I've 
decided  to  use  your  property  after  all,  it'll  take  a 
few  spots  off  of  the  Wyndon  reputation,  and  be 
for  your  good."  With  which  he  gathered  up  the 
papers  left  by  Philip  untouched,  and  bolted  from 
the  house. 

The  next  train  bore  Philip  Burson  to  !STew 
York. 

Burson's  fall  evoked  electric  storms  of  sparkling 
sarcasm  in  Bernfield  drawing-rooms.  Plainly  the 
motive  for  his  crime — you  couldn't  call  it  any 
thing  else — was  love.  What  shame  is  there  so 
great  as  being  taken  in,  in  love  ?  This  was  a  case 
of  inverted  love,  said  a  literary  person  who  was 
writing  an  epic  poem  entitled  "Darwinism."  An 
amateur  scientist  familiar  with  worms  detected 
atavism,  while  a  presumptive  wit  daubed  a  word 
picture  of  Margaret  as  a  "primitive  woman,"  aV 
simple  unevolved  type  with  none  of  the  tender  in 
tellectual  complications  glorifying  the  evoluted 
modern  goddess  of  emotion.  Intellectual,  mis 
cegenation  was  the  term  for  such  a  union,  decided 
each  of  a  group  of  young  ladies  who  had  intended 
to  marry  Philip.  Since  he  had  manifested  a  men 
tal  crumbling  the  escape  of  one  who  might  have 


54          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

wedded  him  was  a  peculiarly  special  providence, 
in  these  days  when  so  many  special  providences 
fail.  They  chimed  their  gladness  lugubriously,,  for 
marrying  men  were  on  the  wane — and  Philip  had 
been  a  reality  of  a  man.  What  a  heartbreak  his 
wife  would  have  suffered  if  the  weakness  had 
broken  out  after  a  proper  marriage  with  some  one ! 
It  could  not  long  remain  unknown  that  Philip 
had  parted  with  everything  he  owned  to  soften 
the  crash  of  Old  Giles.  The  tragedy  of  this  per 
formance  came  to  his  former  friends  as  the  last 
shock  a  lost  man  could  inflict  on  those  who  had 
loved  him  once,  and  gave  them  a  ruddy  satisfaction. 
So  he  was  literally  broken  down  crazy  and  beyond 
pity!  None  of  them  would  consent  to  be  called 
his  friend,  not  even  the  several  families  of  his  near 
relations.  He  had  forfeited  blood  links  and  ex 
onerated  a  just  expulsion  from  the  heart.  They 
suffered,  but  bore  it  like  a  happy  funeral.  The 
cruel  ruin  of  a  man  of  exalted  promise  crushed 
them,,  making  them  gay  at  the  vision  of  him  com 
ing  to  his  right  mind  in  hungry  poverty,  with  his 
primitive  bride  to  feed — squaw,  it  was  suggested, 
which  was  taken  up  rapturously  as  Margaret's  fit 
ting  appellation.  He  would  come  to  his  poverty 
anyway,  and  would  not  need  much  right  mind  to 
know  it.  None  of  the  cultured  of  either  sex  recog 
nized  him  on  the  street;  if  a  man  would  drop  to 


The  Monarch    Billionaire.  55 

affinity  with  criminals  let  him  feel  it — if  he  could 
feel  it. 

It  must  be  said  that  Philip  at  this  time  felt 
nothing  but  a  ceaseless  wonder  at  the  endowments 
of  Margaret's  spirit.  The  womanly  strength  and 
beauty  that  had  been  his  vision  he  had  found. 
He  was  devoting  himself  to  this  life,  and  enjoy 
ing  a  second,  conscious,  creation  of  his  being.  The 
arctic  animosity  that  closed  him  in  was  hardly 
chilling  under  these  circumstances.  His  real  life 
was  intense  and  tropical. 

Of  the  virtues  Giles  was  not  endowed  with  pa- 
tience  was  one.  When  he  had  surprises  for  the 
•public  it  was  his  wont  to  fire  them  in  fast  and  hot. 
Having  given  his  counterfeit  failure  and  the  en 
gagement  and  impoverishment  of  Philip  a  decent 
period  to  work  their  psychic  transformations  in 
the  population,  the  violence  of  the  newspapers  to 
ward  Giles  was  incontinently  abated.  He  gave 
these  organs  of  light  and  fluxion  a  difficult  feat 
to  achieve,  but  they  effaced  themselves  and  somer 
saulted  with  grace.  With  outbursts  of  unfeigned 
ecstasy  they  told  the  world  that  The  Great  Fish, 
Ship,  Iron,  Transportation,  Coal  and  Steel  Com 
pany  had  recovered  from  its  momentary  entangle 
ment  and  would  resume  business.  Pleasant  to  say 
its  operations  had  been  at  no  time  fully  suspended, 
this  majestic  structure  was  not  to  die  and  leave 


56  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

blank  emptiness  and  sorrowing  widows  where  there 
had  been  interest.  Everyone  was  congratulated. 
Life  without  a  monopoly  would  be  dry.  There 
would  be  no  stimulus  to  a  young  man  if  he  could 
not  see  a  monopoly  ahead  for  himself. 

Furthermore  an  examination  of  the  company's 
affairs  had  completely  cleared  the  character  of 
"our  highly  respected  citizen,  Mr.  Giles  Wyndon, 
from  unscrupulous  and  malicious  insinuations/' 
and  soon  the  personnel  of  The  Amalgamated  Com 
pany  would  be  published.  It  came  at  length,  and 
the  worst  suspicions  of  the  people  were  confirmed : 
the  owners  of  the  huge  concern  were  Giles  Wyn 
don,  Esq.,  Philip  Burson,  "F«qv  and  Margaret  Wyn 
don. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  57 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

THE  convictions  of  a  score  of  years  do  not  yield 
easily.  Giles  had  accepted  Philip  because,  having 
tried  him  for  Margaret's  sake  and  to  vindicate  his 
own  deep  distrust,  the  test  had  been  met  leaving 
no  further  right  of  opposition.  Then  Giles  had 
done  his  part,  with  that  dogged  justice  which 
characterized  him  when  he  permitted  the  mediation 
of  honor,  giving  Philip  a  place  with  himself  in  The 
Amalgamated.  Deep  in  him  still  smouldered  the 
belief  that  what  he  called  broad  manhood,  and 
worth  which  you  could  build  on  to  the  last  grain, 
could  not  germinate  from  the  Bernfield  nature  and 
education.  He  wanted  these  qualities  exercised 
toward  him  and  Margaret,  and  enjoyed  a  turbulent 
and  absolute  contempt  for  any  one  who  fell  below 
the  standard — to  his  own  acts,  however,  applying 
quite  different  rules.  Nevertheless  Burson's  com 
prehensive  brain  relieved  him  at  so  many  points 
that  he  was  freed  for  schemes  of  colossal  absorption 
of  rivals  with  which  his  mind  teemed.  Margaret 


58          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

read  intuitively  how  far  the  reconciliation  with 
her  lover  had  gone. 

"Do  you  like  living  here?"  she  asked  him  sud 
denly  at  their  evening  meal. 

He  looked  up  surprised.  "Why  that  question? 
You  do." 

"No,  I  don't.  I  did,  but  I  want  to  go  back  to 
the  Steel  Haven  tenement." 

He  was  alert  and  hopeful.  "Have  you  and 
Burson — had  trouble?" 

The  glow  in  her  eyes  answered  him.  "Philip 
would  like  to  go  with  us." 

Giles'  knife  and  fork  clashed  on  his  plate;  he 
stared  across  at  her. 

Philip  Burson  was  a  man  who  could  dream  while 
standing  firmly  on  the  earth.  Imagination  fore 
runs  reality.  The  dream  of  to-day  is  to-morrow's 
solid  fact,  the  evening's  utopia  is  the  morning's 
unsurprised  realization.  Such  thoughts  had  been 
his  in  college,  through  which  he  had  gone  without 
meeting  an  inspiring  professor,  a  circumstance 
painful  to  him  then,  but  which  had  fortified  his 
natural  mental  self-reliance.  He  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  live  in  the  morrow  as  well  as  the  yesterday 
and  to-day.  If  you  cannot  have  the  actual  dream 
fulfillment  in  your  day  you  can  have  the  dream. 
If  you  are  satisfied  that  soon  your  fanciful  utopia 
will  be  the  invulnerable  existing  institution,  be- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          59 

lauded  by  the  mighty  host  of  those  who  now  would 
froth  upon  its  shadow,  you  will  not  consent  to 
lose  it  all  because  you  were  born  too  early;  you 
will  launch  yourself  forward  into  it,  partly  living 
in  the  coming  beauty  now,  setting  it  up  as  a  radiant 
shrine  in  your  daily  existence,  where  you  spend 
some  of  the  best  hours  of  your  life.  You  will 
carry  its  influences  with  you  into  the  walks  of  the 
world. 

To  his  college  resolution  Philip  owed  most  of 
the  happiness  he  had  had,  and  some  disappoint 
ment.  He  had  placed  himself  unconsciously 
where  in  all  that  was  most  himself  he  stood  alone. 
From  mingling  with  men  and  women  and  efforts 
to  relate  himself  to  life  he  had  returned  athirst 
and  dissatisfied.  The  meeting  with  Margaret 
Wyndon  was  an  epoch.  She  was  to  his  experience 
a  new  genus,  not  a  mere  species  by  herself ;  she  was 
marked  off  radically  from  all  others.  But  of  what 
kind?  What  was  she?  He  did  not  know  her. 
To  comprehend  her  had  from  that  moment  been 
his  quest.  It  led  to  their  engagement,  but  per 
haps  they  had  entered  upon  it  mutually  on  trial, 
as  affording  each  freedom  for  searching  into  the 
unknown  nature  of  the  other,  which  had  become 
their  irresistible  fascination. 

"Among  the  women  I  have  met,  you  alone  see 
the  great  relations  of  things,"  Philip  said  to  her. 


60  The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

"Should  we  encourage  a  sect  vowed  not  to  read,  in 
order  to  gain  a  chance  for  insight  and  thinking? 
Headers  are  generally  neither  strong  thinkers  nor 
doers:  they  would  feel  disgraced  to  think  before 
knowing  what  every  other  thinker  had  thought, 
and  when  it  is  a  question  of  action  they  evaporate 
their  strength  in  fictitious  emotions,  like  stage 
inebriates/' 

"But  you  have  something  that  I  like/'  answered 
the  girl,  "and  you  have  read.  Intellectual  unions 
may  imitate  the  mixing  of  different  races  and 
bloods,  for  a  strong  product  there  may  be  needed 
a  wide  separation  of  qualities  and  training  to  begin 
with.  Can  you  imagine  what  is  to  be  the  result 
of  our  meeting  ?" 

"I  have  done  nothing,  Margaret,  I  am  still  and 
meaningless  like  all  men  with  ideas  under  the 
blight  of  our  time.  It  is  miserable,  and  I  want 
to  break  the  crystal  case  of  decency  I  am  in,  when 
I  can  see  whither  to  move." 

They  ranged  over  the  problems  of  life  near  and 
far  in  their  talks.  Each  felt  that  he  had  been 
merely  whirling  about  himself  in  the  narrow  eddies 
of  living,  and  they  wanted  to  push  out  into  the 
broad  rushing  currents,  to  be  carried  to  some  des 
tiny.  But  what  is  a  worthy  destiny  in  this  modern 
world?  Money  making  is  a  kindergarten  exercise, 
left  by  children  of  a  higher  class  to  three-year- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          61 

olds.  The  luxuries  are  beneath  the  intelligent; 
they  can  neither  guzzle  nor  glutton,  as  both  of 
these  debaucheries  are  a  decrepitude  of  character. 
They  have  not  time  to  build  houses  nor  to  live  in 
grand  ones,  the  call  to  the  one  not  made  with 
hands  will  come  too  soon.  Interest  in  the  old 
Fames  is  dead.  These  cradle  fames  nursed  the 
thoughtless  energy  of  human  infancy,  toughening 
voice  and  limbs ;  the  race  needed  impulsion ;  these 
tinsel  fames  were  the  goals  and  prizes  of  its  dis 
cipline.  But  their  meaning  has  tarried  in  the 
halo  of  the  past.  Now  for  life  on  a  broader  scale, 
on  a  man's  scale,  and  how  is  a  destiny  to  be  found 
worthy  of  our  long-builded  faculties?  Such  ques 
tions  they  asked,  answering  as  best  they  could, 
and  thinking  more  than  they  spoke. 

"You  have  told  me/'  said  Margaret,  "that  your 
father  considered  the  business  life  a  hell  for  the 
refined  man,  saying  that  if  one  would  endure  it 
he  must  have  his  little  paradise  somewhere  away  in 
retirement.  Do  you  believe  that  ?" 

"I  have  always  accepted  the  first  part  of  it,"  re 
flected  Philip.  "Your  father  disproved  the  second 
part  to  mine;  he  showed  him  that  in  life  as  it  is 
there  can  be  no  paradise — if  you  still  engage  in 
life.  If  you  can  have  the  modern  slaves  do  your 
work  under  another's  wand,  you  resting  passively 
apart  to  welcome  the  income  and  prodigally  lavish 


62          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

it  on  your  joys,  never  seeing  the  sordid  throbbings 
of  your  slaves  nor  thinking  of  their  mean  state 
and  shame,  the  world  may  be  a  paradise  to  you." 

"But  can  one  who  would  do  that  be  like  what 
the  best  have  called  gods — higher  beings,  as  men 
ought  to  be  ?" 

Philip  answered  with  a  smile. 

"There  can  be  no  earthly  paradise  then,  unless 
the  men  who  live  in  it  are  all  like  our  dream  of 
the  gods,"  averred  Margaret.  "It  interdicts  the 
'user  of  slaves,  no  less  than  the  slaves." 

"The  earthly  gods  are  long  dead,  Margaret." 

"But  there  can  be  an  earthly  paradise." 

"In  how  many  aeons  ?" 

"Now." 

"I  will  join  you  in  it." 

"Paradise  does  not  demand  immediate  realiza 
tion  of  an  outward  state,  material  perfection;  it 
requires  a  frame  of  mind,  the  forceful  resolution 
to  struggle  powerfully  toward  and  reach  that  out 
ward  state." 

"Men  never  resolved  on  that,  Margaret,  it  would 
be  totally  new.  They  weakly  resolve  to  find  an 
Eden  in  their  feelings,  and  let  the  real  world 
sway  in  its  orbit  of  wretchedness.  They  all  run 
away  from  perfecting  the  real  world,  some  to 
heaven,  some  to  India,  some  to  the  spell-bound 
shelter  of  their  minds.  It  is  a  retreat  of  cowardice 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          63 

and  selfishness.  My  father's  mistake  was  different 
from  that,  and  natural  to  his  time:  he  hunted  an 
oasis  in  the  turmoil  and  grime,  but  there  can  he 
no  private  elysium ;  an  island  arcady  in  the  human 
maelstrom  is  the  bitter  fiction  of  a  derisive  dream." 

"Your  father  was  honest;  he  saw  that  in  the 
life  that  rules,  the  commercial  side  of  man  cannot 
be  refined ;  those  on  the  border  of  commerce,  in  the 
professions,  who  make  a  truea  with  commerce 
without  liking  it,  can  only  be  half  refined;  on 
that  side,  or  by  that  concession,  man  remains  a 
brute  if  not  a  fiend.  Most  people  flinch  this  cer 
tainty." 

"Part  saint  and  part  tiger,  but  the  saint  part 
is  usually  like  a  bean  on  a  pumpkin.  The  tiger 
element  is  the  pumpkin." 

"It  can  be  reversed." 

"Bernfield's  acts  toward  you  and  your  father  in 
these  past  weeks  shattered  one  of  my  idols  ir 
revocably,"  Philip  pursued.  "I  never  thought  the 
culture  of  the  cultured  deep,  but  I  thought  it 
honest,  if  thin.  I  learned  that  it  is  all  dishonest. 
The  cruel,  coarse,  mean  things  which  they  de 
nounce  in  the  poor,  they  hold  themselves  privileged 
to  do  against  the  poor.  Their  refinement  is  a  lie 
which  they  believe  from  infinite  assertion  of  it. 
They  mistake  the  softness  of  their  accents  for  a 
gloss  on  their  natures.  Schooling  and  breeding 


64          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

are  perhaps  a  furniture  polish  in  this  sense : 
smeared  over  the  wood  of  a  club  they  make  it 
shine,  but  the  wood  is  just  as  hard  when  it  hits 
as  if  it  had  no  polish." 

"Pity  them,  Philip ;  the  trouble  is  lack  of  brains 
more  than  of  heart.  Tiger  plus  saint  in  man 
equals  hell,  is  the  hardest  proposition  mortal  ever 
sought  to  grasp ;  most  are  not  yet  far  enough  away 
from  the  gorilla  mentally  to  master  it.  Simple  as 
it  is,  not  one  in  scores  of  thousands  of  civilized 
people  has  the  fineness  of  brain  to  see  that  outroot- 
ing  the  tiger  absolutely  is  the  inviolate  condition 
of  man's  happiness.  When  I  talk  of  saint,  of 
course  I  only  mean  the  real  human  in  us  as  dis 
tinct  from  the  inward  animal/' 

"How  will  you  make  them  see  it?  There  is  no 
believing  in  the  cultured,  the  life  of  the  future  is 
not  to  have  its  roots  in  them.  They  have  had  their 
chance,  a  tremendous  chance,  and  failed ;  they  have 
sold  themselves  to  the  devil  for  things  that  shine 
and  taste.  Feed  them,  speak  them  sweet,  and 
house  them  well,  and  the  enlightened  yield  them 
selves  into  flattered  slavery  to  the  Evil  One — or 
the  Evil  Few.  All  who  can  use  voice  or  pen  em 
ploy  their  faculties  competitively  to  prove  that  the 
cheapest  way  to  heaven  is  by  one  of  the  Devil's 
tours.  The  course  is  roundabout,  but  you  see  in 
teresting  things,  and  its  length  gives  our  fertile 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          65 

guide  the  opportunity  to  instruct.    To  get  devilish 
discipline  is  the  cultured  theory  of  why  we  live/' 

"You  are  right/'  mused  Margaret,,  "the  edu 
cated  and  cultured  are  of  no  value  as  guides  to  a 
better  earth.  Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  have  been 
dreaming  about?  What  reason  has  The  Amalga 
mated  for  longer  existing  and  absorbing  all  our 
energies?  A  feud  between  our  fathers  created  it, 
and  now  it  has  united  us,  healing  the  feud.  We 
do  not  care  for  money,  but  if  we  keep  on  we  must 
care  for  nothing  but  money.  Yet  The  Amalga 
mated  is  a  stupendous  force,  why  not  use  it  to 
create  the  better  earth,  and  grow  to  our  own  des 
tiny  through  it?" 

"Will  your  father  agree?" 

"We  must  convince  him.  We  can  specialize 
the  work:  he  shall  go  on  expanding  The  Amalga 
mated,  we  will  help  him,  but  our  part  shall  also 
be  to  apply  it  as  an  engine  of  social  transforma 
tion,  beginning  within  itself." 

They  went  over  every  phase  of  the  subject  until 
the  plan  was  shaped,  then  imparted  it  to  Old  Giles. 

He  listened  inscrutably,  missing  nothing.  "See 
if  I  comprehend  you,"  said  he,  restating  their 
thoughts. 

"You  propose  for  us  to  live  on  the  plane  of  work 
men,  taking  only  as  much  as  we  give  each  of  them  v 
from  the  business,  in  order  to  merit  their  confi- 


66          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

dence;  out  of  what  is  saved,  however,  by  our 
giving  up  profits  you  would  raise  their  pay. 
Living  low  wouldn't  chafe  you  and  me  much,  little 
girl,  we  did  about  that  before  we  came  over  here ; 
Philip  might  suffer.  You  would  lay  aside  a  Gen 
eral  Improvement  Fund,  to  be  used  for  the  good, 
happiness  and  evolution  of  the  collective  workers, 
the  expenditure  of  which  is  to  be  decided  by  our 
selves  as  owners  for  a  time,  afterward  by  us  and 
such  workers  of  both  sexes  as  profit  most  by  their 
new  opportunities  to  develop  broad  ability  and 
character,  the  number  being  increased  by  selection 
until  all  who  show  an  honest  purpose  to  advance 
are  included. 

"Ownership  of  The  Amalgamated  you  would 
have  no  longer  ours  personally,  but  for  the  present 
vested  in  us  as  trustees.  We  are  em-powered  to 
enlarge  the  board  of  trustees  by  choice  of  the  best 
type  of  men  and  women  among  the  workers.  We, 
-  that  is  to  say,  the  trustees,  are  to  continue  for  a 
time  in  control  of  the  business,  determining  the 
portion  of  labor,  the  Expansion  Fund  for  new 
works  and  absorption  of  related  industries,  and 
the  Improvement  Fund.  We  should,  however, 
initiate  a  system  of  conferences  with  the  workers 
upon  these  questions,  to  obtain  and  educate  their 
judgment  and  prepare  them  for  advancing  respon 
sibility.  Am  I  right  so  far?" 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  67 

"Yes." 

"Then  of  your  scheme  of  recompense,  which 
you  do  not  affirm  is  permanent.  All  employes 
from  highest  to  lowest  are  to  be  classed  in  five  zones 
or  grades.  Advance  from  grade  to  grade  will  repre 
sent  a  growth  in  faithfulness  and  capacity.  The 
compensation  of  the  lowest  zone  will  be  liberal— 
unlike  the  principle  of  payment  of  simpler  labor 
now — and  many  persons  of  the  highest  ability  will 
be  satisfied  to  remain  on  that  plane;  they  will 
prefer  to  exercise  their  choicest  strength  in  other 
than  industrial  fields,  while  earning  in  the  lower 
walks  of  industry  an  ample  competency  and  in 
dependence. 

"You  build  upon  the  theory  that  a  man  is  worth 
a  great  deal  more  than  he  can  commercially  pro 
duce — rather  a  new  thought,  to  me,  but  I  will 
listen  to  it.  An  iron  worker,  for  instance,  can 
do  something  wider  for  his  fellow  men  than  to 
stir  a  furnace  or  shape  iron,  and  that  often  this 
is  so  much  above  commercial  value  that  to  think 
of  paying  for  it  in  money  or  material  product 
would  be  incongruous.  Your  desire  is  to  bring 
out  these  new  values  in  men  and  to  make  them 
paramount  over  pure  industrial  values,  though 
you  sanely  perceive  that  they  must  rest  upon  a 
solid,  independent  material  foundation.  You 
would  provide  all  men  with  sufficient  income  from 


68  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

the  simpler  forms  of  work;  secure  in  this,  com 
pelled  neither  to  strain  for  their  bread  nor  to 
cringe  for  a  job  or  favor,  their  broader  qualities 
and  richer  faculties  would  start  forth,  and  so  much 
more  would  these  qualities  soon  be  valued  by  so 
ciety  that  commercial  attributes  would  fall  to  an 
inferior  place. 

"For  those  still  in  the  purely  commercial  stage, 
and  you  acknowledge  there  are  many  of  these,  you 
would  provide  industrial  promotion  for  strictly 
industrial  attainments.  A  vital  principle  is  here 
installed.  Those  who  desire  more  material  things 
can  have  them  by  working  for  them.  They 
produce  them,  in  something  their  equivalent.  It 
therefore  essentially  rests  with  every  man  how 
much  he  shall  have,  except  that  it  must  come  from 
his  own  labor,  not  that  of  others.  The  zone  grada 
tion  will  quell  an  excessive  desire  of  men  to  outdo 
one  another  from  thoughtless  emotional  rivalry, 
and  be  productive  of  a  sense  of  oneness  and  fra 
ternal  comradeship  in  work. 

"You  prefer  in  the  beginning  that  as  trustees 
we  shall  decide  upon  the  workers'  elevation  from 
zone  to  zone,  but  gradually  that  function  will  be 
extended  to  the  whole  body,  in  consultation  with 
us.  The  members  of  each  zone  will  at  intervals 
select  from  the  zone  below  those  whom  they  deem 
worthy  of  promotion,  and  we  shall  never  interfere 


The  Monarch  Billionaire-          69 

with"  their  choices  without  some  strong  unusual 
reason.  Should  men  in  any  rank  be  found  un 
worthy  of  advancement  after  receiving  it,  they 
may  be  returned  to  an  inferior  grade  by  the  action 
of  their  own  zone,  but  only  so  where  they  prove 
unwilling  to  exert  their  best  powers.  Have  I 
grasped  your  plan  ?"• 

"In  its  main  outline,"  answered  Philip,  "re 
membering  that  the  plan  is  progressive.  We  adopt 
the  system  of  grades  in  order  to  stimulate  effort, 
but  the  occupants  of  the  lowest  circle  are  to  receive 
enough  for  excellent  living  and  the  best  develop 
ment.  Among  both  poor  and  rich  at  present  are 
many  who  are  not  yet  trained  to  the  intelligent 
expenditure  of  too  liberal  an  income.  They 
would  consume  it  in  coarse  luxury,  hurting  them 
selves  and  society.  We  believe  that  people  have 
no  right  to  waste  the  world's  wealth;  if  they  do 
so,  it  defrauds  others  of  the  power  of  wholesome 
enjoyment  and  growth.  Society  is  bound  to  guard 
itself  against  the  wastefulness  of  the  selfish,  de 
generate  and  unevolved.  Our  method  will  rapidly 
diminish  the  number  of  such  and  render  the  con 
trol  of  their  unsocial  proclivities  easy." 

"At  some  future  day  when  all  are  trained,  would 
you  believe  in  abolishing  the  zones  and  giving  all    v 
an  equal  income  ?" 

Margaret  replied  to  this.    "It  will  be  for  experi- 


7<D          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

enoe  and  those  who  come  after  us  to  determine 
that.  We  attain  the  end  of  equality  in  a  great 
degree  by  our  general  improvement  fund,  of  which 
the  purpose  is  to  build  up  means  of  enjoyment  and 
improvement  freely  open  to  all  without  personal 
expenditure. 

"There  is  here  a  limitless  sphere.  For  instance, 
education  and  travel.  We  should  bring  every 
kind  of  education  to  the  highest  perfection,  plac 
ing  it  in  every  one's  reach  without  cost;  and  we 
should  have  a  vacation  travel  fund  to  give  each 
J  associate  in  The  Amalgamated  a  liberal  outing 
annually.  Those  wishing  to  save  from  their  per 
sonal  incomes  to  prolong  their  travels  could  do  so, 
for  they  could  always  secure  as  long  an  absence 
for  this  purpose  as  they  might  desire.  By  these 
advantages  the  tastes  and  character  of  every  indi 
vidual  would  be  widened  and  rounded  into  power 
and  faultlessness. 

"Travel  is  one  of  the  leading  forms  of  education 
as  well  as  a  principal  pleasure  of  life.  Education 
by  books  is  a  weak  shadow  of  real  education,  which 
consists  of  seeing  the  things  of  the  world  rather 
than  reading  about  them,  of  mingling  with  other 
peoples  and  learning  their  language  and  character 
by  intercourse.  Children  will  be  educated  by  tours 
over  the  world,  which  will  give  them  health  and 
happiness,  and  an  understanding  of  life.  School- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  71 

room  imprisonment  will  be  much  less  fashionable 
when  we  arrive  at  our  senses.  Travel  is  now  so 
easy  and  inexpensive  in  itself  that  as  soon  as  . 
capitalists  are  abolished,  whose  profits  make  it 
costly,  it  will  become  a  universal  recreation  and 
enlightenment." 

"If  all  were  developed  on  your  theory,  do  you 
think  direction  and  ownership  of  everything  might 
ultimately  be  delivered  over  to  the  people  in  full  ?" 
meditated  Giles.  "Do  you  say  you  don't  envy  our 
lot  as  chief  owners  of  things,  with  its  mountains 
of  care  ?" 

"It  would  progress  naturally  to  that.  There 
would  immediately  be  the  essence  of  general  owner 
ship,  secured  by  repose  of  the  property  in  us  as 
trustees  for  all,  but  management  would  be  ex 
tended  to  the  rest  gradually,  because  we  desire 
them  to  be  ready  for  it  first.  It  would,  however, 
completely  come  to  them  in  time,  as  we  shall  ex 
plain  hereafter. 

"Meanwhile  and  transitionally  our  proposal  is 
to  present  the  entire  Amalgamated  in  trust  to  the 
whole  body  of  its  employes,  to  be  under  the  con 
duct  of  a  company  of  trustees,  somewhat  resem 
bling  the  constitution  and  direction  of  a  university. 
'At  first  this  Board  will  comprise  only  ourselves, 
but  as  we  discover  men  with  the  right  faculties, 
men  of  large  character,  ideas  and  capacity — and 


72          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

women  also — we  shall  take  them  in.  All  this  will 
be  in  preparation  for  a  more  finished  method  when 
our  system  of  education  and  improvement  shall 
have  had  time  for  fruition.  Then,  the  board  is 
to  contain  a  certain  number,  to  be  replenished  by 
the  election  of  every  other  new  member  by  vote  of 
all  The  Amalgamated,  the  other  half  being  selected 
by  the  board  itself. 

"This  plan,  after  being  operative  for  a  term  of 
years  appointed  by  us,  should  be  alterable  by  a 
majority  vote  of  The  Amalgamated  membership 
to  suit  the  results  of  new  experience." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          73 


CHAPTEK  VIII. 

GILES  had  been  thinking  vigorously  during  this 
exposition.  "I  admit  that  the  adoption  of  this 
form  of  democratic  ownership  by  all  the  great 
capitalist  groups  would  solve  the  labor  and  capital 
question  for  the  world/'  he  said. 

"It  will  have  to  be  adopted  by  all  when  one 
group  inaugurates  it/'  declared  Philip.  "We  have 
thought  that  side  out,  too.  They  will  all  be  forced 
to  follow  suit  for  self-preservation,  or  we  shall 
absorb  them.  We  should  drive  them  to  it  by  the 
superior  quality  of  our  workmen,,  every  one  of 
whom  would  be  a  partner.  We  should  invade  their 
fields  if  necessary,  undersell  rivals  in  all  markets, 
branch  into  further  new  trades,  and  while  under 
selling  them  we  should  still  be  richer  than  they. 
The  threat  of  such  transaction  would  be  enough, 
for  our  newly  created  productive  strength  would  be 
before  their  eyes.  Hear  what  M.  Mabilleau,  who  is 
speaking  in  this  country,  says  about  French  work- 
ingmen.  They  are  superior  to  those  in  any  other 


74          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

country,  he  contends,  ^because  the  French  working- 
man  feels  that  he  is  not  merely  a  tool  of  the  cap 
italist,  but  a  necessity  to  him.  From  this  belief 
arises  a  feeling  of  equality  and  the  socialistic  ten 
dencies  attributed  to  him.  French  workingmen 
take  active  interest  in  national  and  international 
affairs.  When  the  University  Extension  Society 
in  France  instituted  a  course  of  free  lectures,  a 
few  years  ago,  it  was  noticeable  that  the  working- 
men  chose  scientific  courses  on  subjects  of  which 
they  had  previously  been  ignorant/ 

"Now  if  a  chance  is  opened  to  our  working 
classes  to  gain  more  intelligence  will  they  not 
seize  it?  And  if  the  feeling  of  equality  and  ne 
cessity  to  the  employer  makes  them  superior,  when 
they  know  that  the  equality  is  complete  because 
they  are  all  employers,  self-employers,  will  they 
not  become  men  of  higher  strength  and  stature 
in  every  respect?  And  will  not  their  productive 
energy  be  formidably  enlarged  ?  Could  competing 
groups,  conducted  by  repressive  capitalists  still 
wringing  out  profit  from  their  men,  stand  in  op 
position  to  this  sudden  volume  of  new  productive 
strength  ? 

"An  irresistible  force  compelling  other  employ 
ers  to  capitulate  would  also  be  the  action  of  their 
employes.  Having  witnessed  our  system  in  prac 
tice  they  would  demand  of  their  employing  capi- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          75 

talists  to  follow  our  example  and  receive  them 
into  partnership.  Upon  refusal  there  would  be 
endless  costly  strikes.  If,  defiant  of  these  heavy 
losses,  the  owners  should  continue  stubborn,  the 
servants  of  one  and  another  giant  Trust  would 
make  overtures  to  us  to  enter  their  departments 
of  manufacture,  agreeing  to  bolt  their  masters 
and  transfer  themselves  to  us  en  masse,  and  to 
aid  us  with  their  labor  in  equipping  a  new  sys 
tem  of  plants  of  their  kind.  The  old  owners 
would  be  then  obliged  to  yield  or  to  sell  their 
plants  to  us  at  a  low  figure,  for  they  could  not 
hope  to  obtain  new  men  to  serve  them  as  em 
ployes.  They  would  certainly  yield  and  embrace 
our  partnership  form." 

"Yes,"  urged  Margaret,  "and  many  would  do 
so  without  waiting  to  be  forced.  The  practical 
effectiveness  of  it,  demonstrated  by  us,  would  con 
vince  them.  The  struggle  between  capital  and 
labor  is  growing  too  strenuous  for  any  man  in  his 
senses  to  enjoy,  or  to  endure  if  he  can  help  it." 

"And  you " 

"We  should  achieve  a  reconciliation  of  the  great 
opposing  tendencies,  individualism  and  socialism. 
You  can  see  that  individualism  has  reached  ab 
surdity.  If  it  goes  on,  the  two  sides — capital  and 
labor — will  compactly  organize  and  meet  in  a 
supreme  crash,  after  which  who  can  tell  what? 


76          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

We  can  avert  this  by  opening  a  new  channel  to 
humanity.  It  saves  what  is  good  in  both  socialism 
and  individualism :  it  gives  to  all  the  entire  re 
sults  of  their  labor  and  removes  masters;  it  fur 
nishes  the  highest  incentive  to  individual  effort; 
it  utilizes  the  best  minds  at  their  fullest,  and  the 
less  gifted  in  their  degree;  but  what  the  cautiou-- 
will  like  most  about  it  is  this:  it  avoids  turning 
society  into  a  vast  machine,  making  that  unneces 
sary.  Some  people  shiver  with  fear  of  a  great 
social  machine.  They  want  reform,  they  yearn  for 
absolute  justice,  but  they  dread  anything  so  big 
and  apparently  mechanical.  These  will  heartily 
enlist  in  our  program,  which  reaches  the  end  with 
out  bulk." 

"Give  me  details/'  commanded  Giles.  "How 
would  you  evade  the  machine,  Philip  ?" 

"Each  trust/'  rejoined  Burson,  "can  organize 
itself  as  one  of  the  partnerships  described. 
Present  trusts  are  not  unwieldy  in  size  nor  unduly 
hard  to  manage,  and  their  chief  trouble  is  not  in 
manufacturing  but  in  the  cutthroat  hostility  of 
other  industrial  groups.  Let  us  say  there  are 
finally  three  hundred  large  trusts  in  the  country, 
conducting  essentially  all  of  its  business  and  con 
stituting  each  great  industry.  We  propose  to 
change  these  trusts  into  industrial  partnerships 
as  described  and  to  let  them  remain  separate. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  77 

They  will  keep  their  autonomy.  At  many  points 
they  will  touch  and  in  some  conflict,  their  inter 
ests  will  lap  and  intermingle.  The  questions 
thus  arising  will  not  be  settled  by  merging  the 
industrial  groups  or  partnerships  into  one  owner 
ship  or  one  stupendous  partnership,  but  by  a  fed 
eration  in  which  all  will  meet  to  adjust  their  re 
lations. 

"Economic  differences  can  always  be  decided 
by  a  choice  of  methods :  by  industrial  war,  or  arbi 
tration.  The  enlightened  will  work  out  a  just 
basis  of  arbitration.  Organized  equitable  arbitra 
tion  is  federation.  Of  the  questions  arising,  what 
profit  each  group  shall  have  is  crucial.  The  an 
swer  by  general  understanding  will  be,  enough 
for  the  individuals  in  corresponding  zones  of  all 
the  groups  to  receive  the  same  income  for  the  same 
quantity  of  labor/' 

Philip  paused  and  Margaret  pursued  the 
thought. 

"What  chance  has  individual  initiative  now? 
To  form  another  Trust.  Soon  even  that  will  be 
impossible,  for  all  will  have  been  blocked  out  and 
the  owners  of  all  capital,  these  Trust  magnates, 
will  have  agreed  to  invade  one  another's  territory 
no  more — there  will  be  no  outsiders  with  the  cap 
ital  requisite  to  invade.  It  will  be  policy  for  the 
trusts  to  stop  invading  and  competing,  and  mu- 


78          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

tual  slaughter  to  continue  to  do  so.  They  will 
learn  this  lesson,  as  the  owners  of  English  rail 
way  systems — railway  trusts — long  ago  learned  it, 
who  divided  the  territory  and  established  a  per 
petual  truce.  Such  a  truce  is  division  of  the  public 
for  exploitation.  Before  the  stage  of  truce  is 
reached  each  trust  will  make  incursions  into  the 
realms  of  other  trusts  to  conquer  a  claim  of 
possession.  The  crystallization  of  large  trusts  is 
like  the  formation  of  large  empires,  through  the 
stronger  overrunning  and  absorbing  small  states 
unable  to  (protect  themselves. 

"To  launch  a  new  combine  to-day  the  fresh  ini 
tiator  must  gather  capital  from  already  rich  men. 
Is  he  an  able  promoter  he  may  enrich  himself  by 
the  adventure — then  there  is  one  new  rich  man, 
just  one.  The  investing  capitalists  of  course  are 
made  richer  still.  The  people  stay  where  they 
were,  only  their  producing  capacity  is  yet  farther 
mulcted  by  a  new  profit-taking  aggregation.  This 
is  all  the  chance  for  initiative  there  is  left.  It  is 
essentially  none.  But  under  the  plan  of  popular 
partnerships  each  individual  will  have  a  wide,  new 
scope.  Not  to  become  privately  hugely  rich,  it  is 
true — but  that  is  a  vulgar  ambition  indicating  a 
twisted,  miserable  brain.  He  has  a  chance  to 
exercise  all  his  abilities,  which  is  the  grandest  de 
light — or  reward,  if  you  will  call  it  that — a  man 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  79 

can  have.  And  he  gets  the  whole  material  return 
for  doing  it,  all  he  creates.  He  is  not  wanted  in 
life  merely  as  the  operator  of  a  narrow  process  of 
labor,  but  to  display  his  prowess  in  any  vital  direc 
tion  where  his  powers  lead,  because  he  will  then  be 
contributing  most  to  those  about  him.  And  he 
will  be  developing  and  realizing  himself.  What 
greater  reward  is  possible?  What  higher,  richer 
life?  One  who  only  produces  industrially  is  but 
one-fourth  useful,  he  is  but  one-fourth  human. 
When  we  liberate  man  from  his  servitude  to  mere 
industry  we  shall  increase  alike  his  work  and  his 
actual  creativeness  three-fourths." 

"Unless  a  man  is  driven  by  necessity,  he  will 
not  work/7  dryly  ejaculated  Giles. 

"The  highest  stimulus  to  effort  is  freedom," 
cried  Margaret  with  warmth.  "Our  policy  secures 
freedom,  freedom  in  true  equality.  Every  man 
will  be  a  full  universe  in  himself,  not  a  slave  as 
he  is  now,  nor  an  almost  invisible  particle  in  a 
colossal  machine.  All  healthful  incentive  will  be 
given  him  to  act,  originate  and  perform;  the  two 
greatest  invitations,  opportunity  and  appreciation, 
surround  him.  The  two  things  he  cannot  do  are 
—rob  and  rule  others.  He  is  inflexibly  curbed  u 
there.  Under  guise  of  serving  them  he  cannot  be 
their  despot  and  task-driver.  Initiative  is  pre 
served,  both  for  the  partnership  groups  themselves 


8o          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

and  for  the  individuals  in  them ;  you  have  society 
fluid  instead  of  static  and  crystallized ;  the  groups 
are  free  and  fluid  toward  one  another,  leaving  all 
opportunity  for  continual  readjustment  and 
growth,  and  there  is  no  great  dominant  over-power 
to  conduct,  decide,  or  repress." 

"But  you  have  spoken  of  a  federation  of  the 
industrial  groups/'  interrogated  Giles,  "and  what 
about  the  political  state  ?  Do  you  propose  to  abolish 
government  ?" 

"Yes,  there  remains  the  political  state,  but 
shorn  of  its  strength  for  evil  without  even  the 
requisition  of  a  constitutional  amendment.  Its 
evil  power  comes  from  the  great  private  fortunes, 
and  the  fact  that  wealth  can  be  won  through 
manipulating  legislation.  With  the  wealth-creat 
ing  forces  organized  into  partnerships  including 
all  their  workers,  legislation  will  be  stripped  of 
its  fatal  potency.  A  large  field  of  legislative  activ 
ity  will  be  permanently  cut  off.  The  state  will  be 
lessened  in  extent  of  work,  but  what  it  does  will 
count  for  much  more  in  depth  and  weight  for 
public  good. 

"Most  of  the  functions  now  performed  by  law 
makers  would  then  be  transferred  to  the  group 
partnerships,  or  the  federation  of  them.  The 
office  remaining  to  legislatures  would  be  that  of  an 
authoritative  body  representing  the  entire  people 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          81 

irrespective  of  trade  group  affiliations,  acting  to 
make  the  popular  will  operative  in  affairs  con 
cerning  all,  standing  above  the  trade  groups  and 
proceeding  for  the  general  good  where  these  dis 
agreed.  But  the  legislative  bodies  would  be  sub 
ject  to  the  immediate  will  of  the  people,  exercised 
by  the  direct  legislative  principle.  Political  cor 
ruption  would  cease,  for  there  would  be  nothing 
to  feed  it,  all  material  profit  being  wrung  out  of 
politics.  Political  parties  and  machines  would 
vanish,  because  legislatures  would  become  homes 
of  reasoning  conference. 

"The  scientific  congress  is  in  many  ways  the 
model  of  a  true  legislative  body.  It  seeks  truth. 
A  legislative  body  should.  The  latter  seeks  to  es 
tablish  lies,  because  there  is  a  personal  profit  for 
some  one  in  them.  Personal  profit  will  be  drawn 
out  of  legislation  by  revising  Trusts  into  indus 
trial  partnerships:  then  legislatures  can  discuss 
disinterestedly  and  seek  honest  reality  and  intel 
ligence — there  will  be  no  motive  for  anything  else. 

"The  directorate  boards  of  trusts  and  corpora 
tions  know  better  than  to  divide  into  political  par 
ties  within  themselves,  nor  do  the  faculties  of 
great  universities  do  so;  they  converse  and  deter 
mine  questions  amicably  by  reasoning.  The  polit 
ical  party  is  a  barbarism.  It  lives  over  from  the 
world's  civil  war  days,  the  product  of  fierce  selfish 


82          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

antagonisms,  in  which  men  formerly  fought  and 
slaughtered.  The  drastic  opposition  of  greedy  in 
terests  was  not  healed  when  voting  took  precedence 
of  fighting,  but  people  wisely  agreed  to  adjourn 
from  the  sanguinary  civil  battlefield  to  the  wran 
gling  legislative  floor  and  fight  it  out  bloodlessly 
there.  They  meant  to  get  the  better  of  and  skin 
each  other  just  as  much,  and  they  did.  There 
grew  political  parties  and  their  rancorousness. 
The  next  step  in  the  proceedings  of  common  sense 
will  make  for  obliterating  the  desolating,  foolish 
antagonisms  of  separate  interests.  Then  will  po 
litical  parties  die  of  uselessness.  This  will  be  the 
achievement  of  peopleized  trusts,  by  making  the 
interests  of  all  broadly  identical." 

"But  the  federation,"  insisted  Giles;  "will  not 
that  be  despotic  ?" 

"Suppose  a  dozen  of  the  great  universities,  con 
cluding  they  could  advance  the  cause  of  educa 
tion  more  rationally  by  closer  harmony  and  co 
operation,  should  federate,  erecting  a  tribunal  to 
meet  at  times,  for  delegates  of  the  affiliated  bodies 
to  confer  upon  the  work  of  the  universities  sep 
arately  and  collectively.  The  recommendations  of 
this  tribunal  would  carry  convincing  weight  in  al 
most  all  instances  without  the  exercise,  or  power  of 
exercise,  of  the  least  authority  or  tyranny.  Such 
would  be  the  federation  of  industrial  groups.  The 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  83 

private  ownership  by  a  cluster  of  the  Great  having 
departed,  what  motive  would  remain  for  antag 
onism  among  the  groups?  To  seek  to  overreach 
one  another  would  be  pointless,  for  conflict  would 
arise,  ruinous  to  all;  there  would  be  the  common 
retaliation,  the  rest  attempting  to  punish  and  disci 
pline  the  offenders.  Labor  bodies  manifest  that 
the  workers  when  organized  will  not  often  combat 
to  destroy  one  another's  prosperity,  even  under  the 
aggravations  of  capitalism;  it  is  the  capitalists 
who  do  this,  and  they  also  learn  the  folly  of  it 
and  federate.  When  labor  organizations  fight  it 
is  but  briefly,  to  reach  a  sounder  relation  of  work 
ing  union;  and  their  warring  is  due  not  to  their 
wills  but  to  the  social  base  on  which  they  stand — 
mastery  of  all  wealth-making  machinery  by  the 
Great  Few,  who  are  at  deadly  strife  with  them. 
The  partnership  of  all  in  owning,  obliterating 
this  savage  condition  of  conflict  between  owner 
and  not-owners,  would  establish  a  sentiment  of 
firm  comradeship  among  all  the  workers  and  all 
the  groups.  Thus  the  work  of  the  federation 
would  be  easy.  Yet,  as  we  have  said,  it  would  be 
supplemented  by  the  simplified  and  newly  demo 
cratic  general  government,  which,  in  case  of  in 
decision  or  vital  difference  among  the  groups, 
would  intervene  and  decide." 


84          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

"You  have  left  a  weight  that  would  swamp 
your  system  were  it  every  otherwise  sound,"  as 
serted  Giles.  "The  army  of  outsiders,  the  unem 
ployed,  irregularly  employed,  unwilling  to  be  em- 
plo}^ed,  and  the  crude  foreign  immigrants." 

"That  is  all  provided  for,"  Philip  answered  him. 
"The  Trust  purpose,  under  the  ownership  of  the 
few  Great  men,  is  to  produce  and  give  to  the  pub 
lic  the  least  they  must  for  the  greatest  profit. 
Their  object  is  not  output,  not  general  well-being, 
it  is  simply  and  narrowly :  How  can  we  giant  own 
ers  cut  the  bulkiest  gain  out  of  society  with  the 
least  return  for  it?  The  interest  of  society  is 
clean,  perpendicularly  opposite  to  this.  Its  inter 
est  is  first,  to  have  the  largest  output,  and  then 
to  spread  it  equitably  through  the  social  whole. 
It  does  not  care  a  twig  for  the  profit  of  the  few 
Croat,  their  profit  is  so  much  wrested  from  itself. 
The  Great  being  removed,  absorbed  into  society 
as  equal  co-partners  like  the  rest,  the  interest  of  so- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          85 

ciety  would  supersede  the  interest  of  these  regnant 
anti-society  few;  the  good  of  each  social  unit 
would  be  the  paramount,  operative  interest,  and 
the  whole  aim,  the  execution  and  placement 
among  these  units  of  the  largest  product.  These 
products  would  pass  among  the  various  industrial 
groups  by  exchange,  and  through  society ;  the  re 
ceipts  of  all  from  the  social  productiveness,  each 
having  the  wished-for  products,  would  be  their 
pTOfit — .profit  assuming  a  reasonable  meaning: 
from  being  what  a  person  gets  beyond  what  he 
gives,  becoming  the  quantity  produced  and  re 
ceived  of  things  desired." 

"But  you  say  nothing  of  how  the  product  is  to  be 
enlarged,"  criticised  Giles. 

"I  am  coming  to  that.  Society  has  its  idle  and 
half  employed  to  put  to  work,  and  its  squadrons 
of  drone  rich  uselessly  living  on  interest,  rent 
and  so  forth,  uncreative,  also  to  be  given  work. 
There  are  idle  mills,  closed  lest  their  product 
should  shrivel  the  Great  Few's  profits— denying 
the  people  that  product:  they  can  serve  in  these. 
There  are  prodigal  aggregates  of  sleeping  land, 
unused  because  the  part  of  wealth  apportioned  to 
tillage  by  a  profit-seeking  industry  does  not  repay 
tillage.  The  wealthy  direct  labor-application  to 
luxuries  for  their  pampered  gayety,  withdrawing 
it  from  raising  strong  food  to  nourish  in  hearty 


86          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

development  a  strong  mankind,  and  the  industrial 
system  vests  in  these  wreckers  of  human  strength 
the  right  to  decide  the  case  against  entire  man 
kind.  Material  and  unused  labor  for  building  new 
factories  are  richly  present,  which  would  give  work 
to  more  men  and  farther  swell  the  aggregate  for 
general  distribution.  All  the  newly  employed 
would  earn  their  own  pay  by  creating  it,  as  well 
as  furnishing  a  surplus  labor  power  and  product 
to  devote  to  the  general  good.  It  must  be  remem 
bered  how  much  more  enthusiastically,  intelli 
gently  and  productively  men  would  labor  when 
conscious  of  being  destined  to  enjoy  the  full  fruit 
age  of  their  efforts,  than  when  paralyzed  by  the 
certainty  which  besets  them  now  that  the  best  and 
choicest  resultants  of  their  toil  will  go  to  the  merry 
band  of  gilded  owners. 

"The  creative  power  of  society  is  to  be  added  to 
we  know  not  how  many  times  by  creative  education. 
Productive  training  is  being  strictly  denied  the 
many  from  the  niggardly  opinion  we  have  of  a 
man's  value.  We  care  not  what  he  is  or  amounts 
to,  how  little,  if  he  can  be  done  into  capitalist 
profit.  That  profit  is  the  size  of  his  worth.  Wher 
ever  we  see  a  man's  form  working  it  is  not  a  man 
in  making,  that  human  marionette  is  fabricating 
himself  into  a  big  man's  gain.  An  education  to 
make  men  industrially  productive,  banishing  the 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  87 

thought  of  somebody's  profit  out  of  them,  would 
give  present  men  several  times  their  value." 

Giles  expresses  his  uncertainty  anent  the  mean 
ing  of  general  good.  That  was  in  his  line  as  a 
large  employer  of  labor,  who  conferred  good  on 
all  that  worked  for  him  by  supporting  them  and 
letting  them  enrich  him.  What  further  general 
good  could  be  wanted  by  any  one  was  not  evident. 

Philip  explained.  "Works  of  general  improve 
ment  would  be  numerous  and  would  absorb  much 
labor.  Were  there  still  unemployed,  occupation 
could  be  found  in  this  field.  Such  works  take  the 
form  of  general  reward  or  income  for  all  labor, 
since  all  individuals  are  directly  bettered  and  en 
riched  by  them.  The  value  of  this  fundamental 
investment  is  inestimable,  for  it  will  so  change  the 
nature  of  the  community's  life  that  each  child 
born  within  it  will  find  awaiting  him  a  great  herit 
age.  The  richest  man,  through  what  his  private 
wealth  can  surround  him  with  at  present,  has 
nothing  compared  with  it.  We  have  builded  griev 
ously  few  arrangements  for  pleasure,  music,  social 
intercourse;  our  communities  are  ugly  and  un- 
healthful,  disease  is  indigenous  and  endemic;  our 
educational  institutions  are  grossly  defective  and 
only  the  lowest  are  accessible  to  the  majority — we 
suffer  the  crudest  dearth  of  really  modern  places 
of  training;  true  art  and  literature  have  but  the 


88  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

slenderest  encouragement;  science  of  any  but  the 
commercial  sort  is  feebly  appreciated,  and  it  is 
baldly  notorious  that  the  stomach-chefs  of  our 
consuming  Rich  are  better  rewarded  than  the  sci 
entists  most  useful  to  humanity ;  while  invention  is 
repressed  by  the  selfishness  of  a  profit-exacting 
capitalism. 

"The  reversal  of  all  this  would  be  a  part  of  the 
work  applied  to  general  good.  A  child  entering  a 
community  touched  with  intelligence  would  have 
a  birthright  that  is  possible  to  no  child  now.  All 
are  born  in  these  days  into  a  sordid  and  embit 
tered  society  and  suffer  sorrow  and  injury  from  it 
to  the  end  of  their  lives,  though  guarded  by  the 
most  exclusive  barriers  of  private  wealth.  The 
world  can  be  actually  excellent  for  none  unless  it 
is  so  for  all,  it  can  be  made  so  only  by  the  willing 
work  of  all.  See  how  a  man  will  toil  for  what  he 
imagines  will  give  him  a  complete  return!  Let 
him  understand  that  the  world  is  his  and  every 
man  will  exert  his  hugest  efforts  for  it.  The  Com 
mon-wealth  would  then  have  a  magnificent  mean 
ing.  Citizens  of  Athens  in  her  prime  enjoyed  a 
rich  common-wealth  in  the  form  of  her  temples, 
art  treasures,  games  and  public  activities,  but  the 
power  of  the  modern  world  to  surpass  the  Greek 
city  incomparably  transcends  all  past  human  ca 
pabilities." 


The  Monarch   Billionaire.  89 

"If  you  were  to  make  so  glad  a  situation — I  don't 
say  I  think  it  glad,  for  gladness  to  me  is  the  sense 
of  owning  the  world  and  permitting  mankind  to* 
occupy  it  for  a  tribute — foreign  offscourings  would 
swarm  in  and  reduce  things  back  to  their  natural 
state."  Giles  announced  this  as  the  soundest 
axiom. 

"The  present  state  is  natural  if  brute  principles 
exclusively  are  natural,"  they  admitted,  "but  the 
higher  human  impulses  are  really  more  natural, 
because  man  is  human.  Immigration  is  a  ques 
tion  with  two  sides.  The  most  useful  people  in 
the  world  are  the  discontented.  They  are  the  most 
intelligent,  for  they  see  that  things  are  out  of 
joint,  and  they  do  the  pioneer  thinking  and  work 
ing  for  change.  Stupid  people  think  that  society 
is  all  right.  The  better  classes  are  generally 
stupid.  It  is  the  dull  and  mechanical  intellects 
that  get  along  in  the  world,  because  the  majority 
of  men,  being  dull  and  mechanical,  promote  their 
own  kind.  These  promoted  beings  are  called  the 
safe  people — that  means  they  will  shut  their  eyes 
and  run  in  the  ruts.  If  you  inject  a  little  imagi 
nation  into  a  man  he  becomes  unsafe,  intelligence 
sprouts,  and  he  sees  the  rottenness  of  the  tree  of 
human  custom,  he  wants  the  tree  of  custom  cut 
down,  and  a  tree  of  life  planted  in  its  place:  the 
stupid,  who  are  parasites  on  the  tree  of  decay,  rise 


90          The   Monarch   Billionaire. 

in  their  wrath  against  his  sacrilege,  and  if  he  puts 
an  ax  to  the  roots  of  that  tree,  woe  unto  him. 
The  prosperous  are  generally  stupid.  The  pros 
perous  and  the  better  classes  are  generally  the  same, 
and  that  is  why  they  are  both  stupid.  They  are 
satisfied  to  get  along  without  intelligence  because 
they  have  bread.  They  very  seldom  do  anything 
to  help  the  world  forward,  their  mission  in  the 
cosmos  being  evidently  to  keep  things  back.  They 
are  created  as  far  as  we  can  tell  because  there  is 
danger  of  too  much  speed  in  improvement.  Man 
cannot  suffer  enough  in  a  thousand  }^ears,  so  the 
universe  rubs  it  in  and  makes  it  a  million.  Evo 
lution  was  timed  to  travel  by  stage-coach.  This 
is  the  only  explanation  there  is  for  the  prevalence 
of  stupidity,  for  as  it  is  very  prevalent  we  have 
to  account  for  it.  We  have  to  explain  why  men 
were  stupid  when  they  might  have  been  made 
bright. 

"These  facts  throw  a  great  deal  of  light  on  the 
immigration  problem.  When  we  see  the  prosper 
ous  coming  we  welcome  them  and  say  here  come 
good  citizens.  We  should  say  here  come  stupid 
citizens  who  will  have  no  ideas  about  anything  but 
monotony,  and  sliding  in  the  measured  ruts,  and 
watering  the  tree  of  custom,  and  making  money. 
They  are  contented.  If  Europe  could  ship  over  a 
mass  of  discontented  to  us,  these  would  be  good 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          91 

citizens.  They  would  bring  some  thoughts  with 
them,  which  we  sadly  lack  here.  Their  thoughts 
would  be  of  a  system  of  society  founded  on  the 
general  good;  our  thoughts  are  of  a  system  of  so 
ciety  founded  on  the  general  evil,  for  the  general 
good  of  the  Big  Man.  This  idea  is  the  fruit  of 
the  Tree  of  Custom — the  Tree  of  Death.  Civili 
zation  promised  to  dig  down  this  tree,  but  it  has 
manured  it,  with  little-child  factory  workers,  with 
frail  women  factory  workers,  with  prostitutes  for 
the  balance  of  their  bread  after  the  Big  Man  has 
paid  them  dying  wages,  with  the  bodies  of  men 
early  slain  by  work  to  berich  the  prosperous,  with 
haggard  eyes  of  the  half-fed  living  who  are  toss 
ing  their  vitals  into  the  alembic  of  rich  men's 
wealth.  Civilization  has  slightly  failed  because 
it  relied  on  the  stupid  and  contented  to  conduct  it. 
Now  we  are  going  to  change  conductors  and  sub 
stitute  the  intelligent  and  discontented.  We  find 
these  among  the  poor.  The  offscourings  of  Europe 
bring  their  quota. 

"We  need  not  open  to  the  insane.  If  we  could 
revolutionize  European  oppression  by  repulsing  the 
off  scour  and  discontent,  checking  them  at  home 
until  the  fastened  safety-valves  break,  it  might  be 
generous  to  prohibit  all  immigration.  But  the 
species  we  should  barricade  against  is  the  pros 
perous.  We  are  already  dropsical  with  idolaters 


92  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

of  custom  and  wealth.  The  prosperous  are  steeped 
in  the  gross  ambitions  of  the  ages.  We  need 
pioneer  blood;  the  blood  of  custom  changers  and 
wealth  despisers,  we  need  barbarians  unsullied  by 
the  pomp  of  profit  and  the  rave  of  trade.  We  need 
a  blood  mixed  in  the  free  courage  of  the  sun,  not 
paralytic  with  the  poison  of  civilization.  It  is 
rather  to  be  found  in  the  depths  than  in  the  ex 
hausted  heights  of  mankind." 

"You  would  hardly  revolutionize  Europe  by 
padlocking  its  emigration/'  Giles  said.  "For  our 
wealth  emigrates  to  them  with  our  daughters  who 
marry  decayed  titled  stock,  propping  up  with 
American  riches  tottering  medieval  institutions 
that  ought  to  die.  It  plays  back  on  us,  too,  me- 
diaevalizing  our  most  rich  and  powerful  smart 
class  and  their  army  of  conscientious  apers." 

"That  will  be  taken  care  of  before  long  by  our 
workers/'  they  answered.  "The  American  working 
man  will  step  from  under  rotted  foreign  nobilities. 
The  American  revolution  was  a  revolt  against  kings 
and  nobles,  yet  the  wealth  of  America,  furnished 
by  the  American  workingman,  is  now  supporting 
them.  When  the  working  class  see  this  they  will 
find  a  means  to  end  it.  They  are  killing  their 
children  to  send  money  abroad  to  these  'noblemen.' 
A  New  York  physician  has  just  said  that  'there 
are  50,000  New  York  families,  with  three  or 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  93 

four  children  each,  who  have  bedrooms  without 
any  windows  in  them/  and  consumption  ravages 
these  families.  Do  not  these  working  people  owe 
their  children  more  than  they  owe  European  lords 
and  princes?  The  annual  riches  made  and  sent 
by  our  workers  to  one  American  girl's  nobleman 
would  probably  pay  the  car  faro  of  the  bread  earn 
ers  of  all  these  New  York  families  back  and  forth 
from  healthy  homes  in  the  country  and  save  their 
lives.  It  is  not  only  the  wage  class  that  is  pun 
ished  by  this  American  crime:  the  physician  fires 
a  shaft  into  the  well-to-do,  telling  them,  'Remem 
ber,  it  is  no  consolation  to  you  that  these  people 
die.  Before  they  die  they  infect  you.  Your  ser 
vant  or  seamstress  may  have  lived  in  the  window- 
less  rooms.' 

"One  of  these  days  the  workers  of  the  United 
States  will  stop  the  outflow  of  their  wealth  to 
'nobles'  and  invest  it  in  sanitary  homes  for  them 
selves.  That  will  be  soon." 

"Now  listen  to  me/'  said  Giles.  "I  perceive  no 
flaw  in  your  plan.  Whatever  is  good  in  individual 
ism  or  personal  freedom  you  have  saved,  and  all 
that  is  valuable  in  socialism  you  have  introduced. 
Your  program  preserves  individual  initiative  com 
pletely  ;  it  lays  the  bugaboo  of  paternalism  at  rest. 
Your  group  idea,  each  group  democratically  self- 
managed,  with  ownership  vested  in  the  group,  is  a 


94  The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

masterful  advance  on  the  idea  of  general  collective 
ownership,  in  fact  I  am  compelled  to  confess  it  to 
be  so  different  from  the  usual  theories  of  popular 
ownership  that  it  removes  all  the  difficulties  cur 
rently  urged.  You  not  only  retain  but  vastly  in 
crease  the  scope  of  individual  freedom  and  initia 
tive.  Instead  of  multiplying  laws  and  enlarging 
government,  you  sharply  'diminish  their  field: 
and  you  make  the  voluntary  principle  supreme, 
while  in  your  over-state  you  have  a  power  to  ensure 
this  principle  from  self-destruction  by  excess. 
You  have  struck  out  the  path  which  society  ought 
to  follow." 

Giles  paused  and  the  two  waited  eagerly  to  hear 
him  announce  co-operation.  He  deliberated  and 
Margaret  sought  further  to  impress  him. 

"We  do  secure  essential  general  ownership,  and 
ordain  firmly  the  principle  of  general  supremacy 
in  all  property  affairs ;  for  above  the  groups  stands 
the  federation,  and  over  the  federation,  for  emer 
gencies  stand  the  whole  people  in  democratic  au 
thoritative  union.  The  vesting  of  property  in  the 
groups  is  thus  subordinated  to  the  whole  and  th* 
whole's  good;  but  the  greatest  liberty  of  manage 
ment  compatible  with  the  social  primacy  is  left 
with  the  groups,  which  in  their  turn  are  internally 
most  democratic.  Our  general  ownership  is  un- 
mechanical  and  individual,  since  the  individual,  in 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.  95 

every  respect  but  the  power  to  absorb  and  control 
to  the  detriment  of  others,  has  become  industrially 
immensely  more  cogent.  While  this  is  the  tri 
umph  of  general  ownership,  the  condition  is 
one  more  individual  in  ownership  than  the  present 
pseudo-individuality,  which  is  on  a  tack  that  de 
stroys  true  individual  strength. 

"What  we  accomplish  is  a  change  in  the  quality 
of  individual  ownership,  not  abolishing  it.  We 
place  a  higher  principle  above  it,  altering  and  ele 
vating  the  individual  principle,  not  destroying  it. 
That  we  surmount  with  the  general  principle,  gen 
eral  owning,  so  shaping  and  delimiting  this  that 
it  enhances  the  individual  element  and  sense.  The 
individual  then  owns  through  the  wider  ownership ; 
present  partners  and  stock  holders  do  so  in  a  de 
gree,  but  not  as  vitally.  While  the  general  owner 
ship  is  paramount,  the  individual  proprietorship 
in  this  general  ownership,  and  through  it,  is  well 
denned. 

"Moreover,  there  will  be  fluidity  of  movement 
for  the  individual,  equivalent  to  changing  his  in 
vestment.  He  can  transfer  himself  from  one  line 
of  work  to  another,  in  doing  so  transferring  his 
partner al  ownership,  for  wherever  his  work  is,  there 
by  the  new  terms  of  industry  he  is  owner.  The 
primal  fact  under  all  is  that  ownership,  while 
changeable,  is  inalienable. 


96          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"It  is  the  extension  of  the  principle  of  citizen 
ship.  The  citizen  of  to-day  is  inalienable  partner 
and  owner  in  the  public  streets,  the  city  hall,  the 
court  house,  the  jail,  the  public  school,  the  post 
office,  no  matter  if  he  hasn't  a  cent  in  his  pocket  or 
a  job.  The  new  step  expands  citizenship,  makes 
him  a  partner-owner  in  industry,  always  owner  of 
work,  and  of  an  income  while  he  works,  and  of  all 
results  accruing  from  his  work  at  any  time.  This 
is  real  citizenship.  Anything  less  is  mock  citizen 
ship,  a  fantastical  shadow  of  it.  Here  is  every  in 
citement  to  work  and  improve.  The  chief  present 
stimulus  is  to  invest  your  money,  do  nothing,  and 
let  others  make  dividends  for  you.  The  chief  aim 
in  the  world  under  our  abortion  of  industry  is 
idleness. 

"In  fact,  we  apply  the  principle  of  home  rule 
to  industry — home  rule  coupled  with  associative 
federation.  I  have  heard  socialism  defined  as  'a 
system  which  looks  to  an  ideal  of  very  strict  posi 
tive  government  in  every  relation  in  life ;'  our  sys 
tem  attains  the  socialist  end,  but  by  means  of 
self-government  applied  to  every  relation  in  life ; 
there  is  no  great  machine ;  there  is  no  repression  of 
the  individual,  the  individual  feels  himself  to  bo 
reaching  out  through  the  whole  and  is  everywhere 
a  vital  guiding  factor  in  it." 

"That  is  excellent/'  conceded  Giles. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          97 

"Note  this  especially :  with  our  essential  general 
ownership  we  have  both  the  fact  and  the  conscious 
ness  of  individual  ownership,  the  union  of  which  is 
the  modern  problem.  The  individual  is  not  bereft 
that  all  may  own,  his  sense  of  personal  owning  is 
intensified  by  the  enlargement  of  the  content,  or 
idea,  of  ownership  and  of  what  it  brings  him. 
He  cannot  be  buncoed  or  deprived  of  his  owning. 
Its  returns  are  sure  and  great,  but  they  visibly  de 
pend  on  his  own  and  his  partners'  exertion  and  in 
telligence.  Ownership  gains  a  rational  meaning. 
It  ceases  to  be  something  accidental,  which  may 
be  used  by  a  fool's  private  whim  to  ruin  others  and 
lower  all,  therein  reacting  ruinously  on  the  un 
bridled  owner — it  lifts  the  good  use  of  ownership 
into  a  science  and  protects  each  and  all  from  the 
fool.  The  world  harbors  many  fools,  and  must, 
till  fools  are  intelligently  outbred  from  mankind/' 

"I  like  to  hear  you,"  Giles  said  appreciatively, 
"go  on." 

"I  will  say  this  in  another  way  for  emphasis. 
We  propose  the  highest  degree  of  individual  owner 
ship  accordant  with  individual  good,  and  with  it 
provide  a  definite  commercial  stimulus  to  indi 
vidual  effort.  Prosperity  will  follow  intelligence 
and  individual  effort ;  and  of  each  the  most  liberal 
contribution  of  intelligence  is  sought.  Thus  the 
of  personal  ownership  is  his,  yet  expanded 


98          The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

and  freighted  with  robuster  meaning.  His  part 
of  responsibility  does  not  fade  away  in  an  indus 
trial  machine  of  intangible  magnitude,  for  he  is 
equal  co-partner  in  a  group  structure  that  can  be 
grasped  in  thought.  It  is  well  known  that  even 
the  numerous  minor  stockholders  of  large  corpora 
tions  feel  a  strong  interest  and  even  a  sense  of  pro 
prietorship  in  their  management,,  while  much  more 
do  active  partners  who  share  the  work  and  respon 
sibilities.  Our  system  of  elevating  each  into  a 
partner  assures  the  maximum  sense  of  personal 
identity  with  the  group  work,  of  personal  proprie 
torship  as  far  as  that  is  legitimate,  accompanied  by 
the  feeling  of  an  individual  ownership  in  the  fur 
ther  and  special  agencies  that  make  for  general 
welfare.  Each  is  partial  controller  everywhere. 
He  may  rise  to  ever  greater  responsibilities  in  the 
industrial  organism,,  yet  as  he  grows  in  brain  power 
he  will  not  deem  these  burdens  a  prize,  but  will 
welcome  the  deepening  intelligence  of  all  his  fel 
low  partners,  for  then  each  will  naturally  assume 
larger  responsibilities  without  strain,  relieving  the 
burdened  few  originally  more  competent.  What 
greater  .measure  of  personal  ownership  could  any 
intelligent  being  desire?" 

Philip  supported  her  approvingly.  "It  makes 
our  present  mode  of  absolute  unit  ownership  appear 
not  only  foolishly  selfish  but  grossly  unintelligent. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.          99 

Present  individuals  are  personally  poor  contrasted 
with  the  rich  resources  that  will  be  in  command  of 
each  under  this  rational  widening  of  his  scope. 
"Every  one  will  of  course  have  the  unrestricted 
proprietorship  of  his  income.  He  will  enjoy  the 
direct  return  of  all  his  increased  application  and 
proficiency  by  adding  to  his  private  income,  and 
by  swelling  the  wealth  applied  to  general  embellish 
ment  of  life,  in  everything  pertaining  to  which, 
like  the  member  of  an  opulent  private  club  of  to 
day,  he  is  equal  participant  with  all.  Not  an 
atom  of  the  product  of  his  creation  will  be  suc- 
tioned  away  by  some  other  who  creates  nothing. 
For  the  man  who  supports  himself  in  these  days 
under  lawless  Privatism,  is  one  who  surrenders  to 
others  who  have  no  right  to  it  three  times  as  much 
as  he  keeps — which  is  the  tax  claimed  and  ex 
tracted  by  a  parasite  system  for  the  privilege  of 
working." 


ioo        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTEE  X. 

As  they  expanded  their  thoughts  Giles  compre 
hended  that  he  was  hearing  something  not  to  be 
overlooked.  Whatever  he  might  do  such  ideas 
would  be  influential,  there  was  a  serious  choice  be 
fore  him  and  he  recognized  it.  Capitalists  had 
had  a  free  fling,,  a  grand  fling,  a  supreme  fling; 
everything  had  been  for  them,  everything  had  been 
theirs ;  perhaps  the  world  would  come  to  its  senses 
and  turn  a  new  page  and  haul  them  down.  He 
would  decide  deliberately  and  abide  the  conse 
quences. 

"You  were  going  to  tell  me  the  more  perfect 
social  form  which  you  see  ahead  when  the  transi 
tion  stage  is  past/'  he  said.  "I  ought  to  hear  that 
before  I  commit  myself/' 

"It  can  be  sketched  now  without  difficulty/'  they 
answered.  "It  is  possible  in  industry  to  know  very 
accurately  what  each  worker  produces.  Employers 
continually  assert  that  they  know  the  worth  of  each 
'hand'  to  them,  and  they  oppose  collective  bargain 
ing  and  unions  on  the  ground  that  they  want  to 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         101 

bargain  with  men  individually  in  order  to  give 
each  what  he  is  worth,  no  more  and  no  less.  This 
is  declaring  that  they  know  the  value  of  each  rela 
tively  to  the  others.  They  do  not  pretend  to  give 
him  what  he  produces,  for  their  profit  has  to  come 
out  of  that.  But  taking  this  profit  and  distribut 
ing  it  among  the  workers  in  addition  to  wages,  in 
the  proportion  that  the.  employers  regard  them  to 
be  worth,  we  should  have  approximately  what  each 
worker  actually  produces.  Other  principles  are 
involved  for  complete  accuracy. 

"But  the  problem  offers  few  difficulties  when  its 
solution  is  honestly  undertaken.  Where  it  seems 
complex,  employers  to  gain  advantage  of  the  labor 
ers  are  the  cause  of  it,  in  order  to  make  them  be 
lieve  they  produce  less  than  they  do. 

"Granting  that  what  each  worker  produces  can 
be  fairly  accurately  determined,  the  question  of  re 
muneration  or  distribution  of  the  products  of  in 
dustry  is  easily  settled.  Each  can  decide  for  him 
self  the  quantity  of  private  material  things  that 
he  desires  and  can  adjust  his  labor  to  earn  them. 
If  he  loves  these  things  much  and  craves  a  large 
supply  of  them,  he  is  at  liberty  to  spend  his  time 
and  energy  producing  the  equivalent  that  will  en 
able  him  to  possess  them.  They  will  be  the  pro 
duct  of  himself  and  he  will  be  robbing  nobody  for 
all  can  do  likewise  if  they  desire.  All  he  acquired 


IO2         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

would  be  the  result  of  his  actual  production,  the 
frame-work  of  industry  would  preclude  him  from 
deriving  anything  unearned,  by  scheming. 

"A  limit,  however,  would  be  placed  upon  excess 
labor,  upon  that  namely  which  should  cause  the 
worker  to  jeopardize  his  health  and  mental  sanity, 
making  him  both  an  inferior  citizen  and  a  physical 
burden  on  others.  Here  he  would  be  distinctly 
robbing  others,  requiring  them  to  support  him  in 
feebleness  brought  on  by  material  avarice ;  and  he 
would  be  robbing  them  of  their  right  to  have  in 
him  a  decent  and  worthy  human  associate.  A  man 
is  a  thief  who  destroys  what  is  good  in  himself, 
depriving  others  of  the  companionship  of  this  good. 
He  gives  them  an  evil  thing  to  associate  with  in 
place  of  a  good  thing  which  he  owes  them.  And 
it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  society  to  protect  itself 
against  the  self-injury  of  men,  because  this  is  the 
injury  of  all  and  a  fraud  and  wrong  upon  all,  and 
to  see  that  its  members  are  of  an  elevated  type  for 
its  good.  A  man  who  abuses  himself  in  a  selfish 
pursuit  is  not  in  any  sense  the  exclusive  sufferer, 
he  is  a  murderer  of  general  happiness.  The  theory 
that  society  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  in 
dividual  overlooks  this  bearing  of  his  conduct  upon 
others. 

"Society  will  therefore  more  and  more  act  to  re 
quire  men  to  be  self -protecting.  A  man  is  in  a 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         103 

manner  insane  who  by  excess  of  effort,  ambition, 
or  desire  degrades  his  physical  or  mental  health. 
Heretofore  the  social  structure  has  spurred  men  to 
these  species  of  insanity;  a  rational  society  will 
address  itself  to  the  cure  and  prevention  of  these 
manias,  which  will  be  placed  in  the  category  of 
destructive  and  costly  infectious  diseases  like  con 
sumption.  In  slight  but  initial  recognition  of  this 
principle  in  their  sphere  some  colleges  enforce  a 
system  of  physical  training  and  upbuilding. 

"Likewise  and  for  the  same  reason  will  society 
require  of  men  self-evolution.  To  shirk  this  is  a 
direct  blow  at  the  rest,  robbing  them  of  good  they 
have  a  right  to.  A  man  does  not  live  to  himself 
alone ;  if  he  has  latent  talents  which  he  refuses  to 
develop  he  takes  the  joy  and  good  they  would 
produce,  from  every  one  else  as  well  as  himself. 
For  example,  one  with  a  beautiful  voice  who 
should  refuse  to  be  trained  to  sing. 

"In  providing  free  schools  for  the  young  and 
compelling  attendance  society  has  taken  a  step  to 
recognize  its  rights  and  its  duty  to  itself.  But 
there  is  no  limit  to  this  duty,  for  all  men  have  man 
ifold  talents  which  the  great  majority  are  never 
able  to  exercise  or  improve  at  all  for  want  of  oppor 
tunity.  Every  man  with  a  talent  unimproved  robs 
others  as  well  as  himself  of  it. 

"Now,  while  constraint  at  some  period  may  be 


104        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

necessary  for  many  children,  it  would  be  so  for 
few  grown  men  if  opportunities  were  rightly  pro 
vided.  Men  detest  effort  in  what  they  dislike  and 
are  unsuited  for,  and  when  the  best  fruit  of  their 
labor  goes  to  others. 

"Up  to  a  certain  point — a  very  low  one — society 
concerns  itself,  still  ineffectually,  with  the  good 
of  its  members  and  its  own  good.  This  is  in  the 
primary  education  of  children.  Then  it  changes 
its  principle  and  authorizes  a  new  force  to  rule 
everything :  that  is,  the  force  of  some  private  man's 
profit.  Children  who  cannot  pay  the  toll  to  him 
on  all  they  eat,  drink,  wear,  and  use — those  whose 
parents  cannot  pay  this  profit-toll  for  them,  musi 
stop  their  growth  and  go  to  work  directly  for  thi.- 
private-profit-taker,  the  capitalist.  All  grown  up 
men's  and  women's  first  duty  is  to  pay  this  toll. 
The  evolution  of  their  talent?  Tush.  After  they 
pay  this  toll  on  life  to  some  private  man,  if  any 
thing  is  left  they  may  develop  their  talents. 

"Here  is  social  suicide.  All  society  makes  a 
Sahara  of  itself  to  fill  the  sty  of  this  Private  Man. 
Sty  is  the  right  word,  for  these  private  men  serve 
others  as  the  occupant  of  a  sty  does.  Infinite 
talents  are  estopped,  cut  down. 

"When  the  Private  Man  is  removed  the  principle 
of  favoring  individual  evolution,  admitted  regard 
ing  young  children,  will  be  extended  to  entire  so- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         105 

ciety,  for  the  whole  period  of  every  individual's 
life.  '  This  aim  will  stand  as  far  above  the  Pri 
vate  Man's  aims  as  it  now  stands  below  them. 

"These  primary  outlines  show  where  the  limits 
will  be  placed  by  society  to  a  man's  liberty  to 
expend  himself  on  the  production  of  material 
things  for  himself,  and  also  indicate  the  many 
new  influences  that  will  save  him  from  caring  to 
go  to  excess  in  this  direction.  His  many  other 
faculties,  now  dormant,  will  be  wakened,  making 
a  man  of  him  and  causing  the  pursuit  of  mere  ma 
terial  things  to  be  like  shaking  a  rattle  all  his  life. 
"Within  these  limits,  however,  industry  would 
be  so  gauged  as  to  give  a  wide  field  of  possible 
production  for  one  to  elect  or  discard;  that  is,  one 
could  choose  to  be  a  producer  and  therefore  earner 
of  much  by  giving  his  time  to  it,  or  could  elect  to 
reserve  his  forces  for  other  things.  His  income 
would  be  essentially  identical  with  his  produc 
tion,  after  deducting  the  sum  for  public  uses. 

"This  provision  would  place  each  where  his 
returns  would  be  distinctly  under  his  own  control. 
"So-called  inferior  or  simple  labor  ranks  above 
other  work  because  there  is  expense  in  learning 
the  "higher'  trades  and  professions.  But  ground 
for  this  rank  vanishes  when  the  learning  of  all 
trades  and  professions  is  opened  to  all  without  cost 
and  when  the  learner  can  simultaneously  be  easily 


io6        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

earning  a  good  living  by  a  moderate  daily  period 
of  some  simple  work.  The  problem  of  just  re 
muneration  or  income  is  thus  greatly  simplified, 
for  the  element  of  payment  for  preparation  dis 
appears,  and  with  it  payment  for  what  is  called— 
largely  erroneously— superior  ability.  Superior 
ability  is  most  often  merely  opportunity  and  train 
ing.  These  being  equalized,  much  of  the  reason 
for  superior  pay  theoretically  based  on  higher  tal 
ent  passes  away. 

"It  is  a  fundamental  truth,  moreover,  that  all 
men  need  for  pure  reasons  of  physical  health  sev 
eral  daily  hours  of  manual  work  of  some  kind. 
Granting  that  one  can  earn  in  these  hours  a  good 
living  by  applying  his  needed  exercise  usefully  to 
some  form  of  production — thoroughly  possible 
when  industry  is  reorganized  without  profit-takers 
— a  sound  basis  is  secured  for  the  independent 
evolution  of  every  man  in  the  line  that  his  higher 
talents  would  dictate. 

"The  vast  resources  ready  for  the  true  earners 
when  industry  is  reorganized  without  profit-takers 
will  convince  any  candid  person  that  these 
ideas  are  not  fanciful.  Eeview  the  profits  of  the 
Trust  Companies  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn  as 
a  type.  The  Central  Trust  Company  pays  an  an 
nual  dividend  of  80  per  cent.;  the  Union,  of  50 
per  cent. ;  the  United  States,  of  50 ;  the  Farmers' 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         107 

Loan  and  Trust,  of  40 ;  the  New  York  Life  Insur 
ance  and  Trust,  of  40;  the  New  York  Security 
and  Trust,  of  32 ;  the  Mercantile,  of  30 ;  the  Mor 
ton,  of  20;  the  Guarantee,  of  20.  'Nearly  every 
trust  company  that  has  been  established  for  any 
length  of  time  pays  dividends  ranging  from  8 
to  16  per  cent/  'The  Central  Trust  Company  has 
paid  60  per  cent,  annually  since  1899,  and  for  nine 
years  prior  to  that  paid  50  per  cent.  It  paid  30  in 
1890,  25  in  1888,  and  from  1878  to  1888  it  paid 
dividends  ranging  from  6  to  16  per  cent.' 

"Thus  it  appears  not  only  how  huge  the  profits 
taken  by  the  non-earners  are,  the  profits  of  the 
monster  Private  Man  for  whom  Evolution  must 
stand  still,  but  how  rapidly  concentration  of  capi 
tal  is  increasing  the  power  of  the  non-producer  to 
compel  the  people  to  stand  and  deliver  profits. 
Eighty  per  cent,  dividends  mean  that  a  man  nearly 
doubles  his  capital  annually.  In  a  few  years,  at 
the  past  rate  of  increase,  it  will  be  100  per  cent. ; 
then  still  more.  And  the  meaning  of  all  this  is 
that  commercial  and  industrial  machinery  is  being 
daily  perfected  to  enable  creators  of  nothing  to 
take  increasing  while  already  immeasurably 
prodigious  totals  of  wealth  annually  from  the  real 
producers.  The  Fifth  Avenue  Bank  equals  the 
Central  Trust  Company  in  dividends — 80  per 
cent. 


io8        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"In  the  new  form  of  industry  ownership  and 
management  will  belong  permanently  to  the  com 
ponent  members  of  the  industrial  groups,  and  that 
ownership  will  be  equal.  No  one  can  be  ousted 
from  his  equal  share  in  proprietorship,,  and  it  is 
open  to  him,  as  above  described,  to  resolve  for  him 
self  how  much  of  the  product  he  will  have.  It 
will  depend  on  his  own  application  and  work. 
Thus  equality  without  a  dead  level  is  secured,  the 
fullest  impetus  to  effort  is  preserved,  the  highest 
opportunity  for  improvement  is  granted,  and  a 
new  field,  above  mere  drudgery,  is  opened  for  all 
in  the  realm  of  the  use  of  their  broader  faculties, 
where  the  greatest  stimulus,  interest  and  attrac 
tion  of  life  are.  The  members  will  conduct  the 
management  with  the  utmost  democracy.  Democ 
racy  cannot  only  be  absolutely  trusted,  but  it  is 
the  only  thing  to  trust.  All  anti-democracy  sig 
nifies  that  a  self-constituted  few  seek  a  basis  to 
exploit  the  many  politically  or  materially,  and  the 
animus  of  political  exploitation  is  always  material 
exploitation." 

"In  this  completer  form  your  idea  of  the  zones 
of  payment  would  be  discarded  ?"  queried  Giles. 

"Probably  so,"  they  replied,  "in  order  to  em 
phasize  individual  effort  and  make  returns  tally 
with  it.  Advancement  would  be  then  determined 
by  ability  displayed. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         109 

"But  to  understand  what  will  happen  you  must 
recognize  the  advent  of  a  new  principle: 

"The  new  order  of  freedom  will  produce  a  new 
type  of  man.  It  will  thereby  change  the  relation 
of  the  individual  to  the  industrial  problem. 

"The  new  type  will  come  because  industry  must 
have  him  and  cannot  proceed  without  him;  it 
will  come  because  where  he  appears  he  will  defeat 
and  supersede  the  existing  lower  type. 

"What  will  his  characteristics,  be?  Self-reli 
ance,  ability,  capacity  to  judge  and  act  without 
being  told  or  directed,  the  power  of  self-direc 
tion  without  a  superior.  This  is  what  the  laborer 
of  to-day  will  become  in  the  close  future. 

"What  evidence  have  we  that  he  will?  First, 
that  we  have  only  to  give  him  the  chance,  and  he 
does  so ;  second,  that  he  will  take  the  chance  if  we 
do  not  give  it  to  him. 

"On  the  first  point  two  proofs  may  be  cited 
from  army  and  navy  experience.  The  battleship 
has  become  so  complicated  that  its  success  in  action 
depends  upon  the  ability  of  subordinates  to  act 
without  orders.  Things  have  grown  too  large  for 
official  control,  and  demand  the  services  of  a  new 
kind  of  unit — the  se//-controlled  unit.  The  offi 
cer  becomes  more  and  more  an  ornament,  a  stuffed 
uniform,  an  interesting  shade  for  laymen  to  drape 
in  glory,  while  the  real  officers,  the  earners  of 


no        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

whatever  glory  there  is  in  international  murder, 
the  real  men,,  are  those  who  man  the  guns,  who 
work  the  machines.  The  officers  might  go  to  sleep 
while  the  men  do  the  work. 

"The  Boer  War  is  a  revolutionary  epoch  in  the 
annals  of  warfare  and  in  some  much  more  im 
portant  annals.  In  that  conflict  the  incapacity  of 
the  stuffed  uniforms  of  the  British  was  betrayed 
astoundingly,  and  because  the  privates  had  not 
been  built  into  self-reliant  units  like  the  Boer, 
defeat  gathered  on  defeat.  The  Boers  showed  what 
a  man  amounts  to  in  war.  He  is  more  than  guns 
or  drums  or  uniforms  or  generals  or  hollow  squares 
or  full  squares  or  even  slight-of-leg  drill  circum 
volutions  under  marionette  ninnies  with  stripes 
on  their  sleeves  and  arrogance  in  their  heads.  The 
great  lesson  of  this  was  that  leadership  in  war  is 
a  back  number.  The  thing  that  counts  is  the  indi 
vidual,  and  what  counts  in  him  is  the  amount  of 
his  independent  capacity  to  have  ideas  of  his  own 
and  to  execute  them.  And  it  proved  that  all  those 
objects  we  are  wont  to  scorn  as  'common  men/  can 
think  and  act  self-dependently  when  they  have 
freedom  to  evolve.  This  discovery  revolutionizes 
war  and  demolishes  the  pomp  and  bombast  of  all 
our  army  systems.  They  must  begin  all  over,  burn 
their  martinet  manuals,  and  what  they  must  make 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         TII 

is  men.     Incidentally.,  it  means  the  end  of  war, 
because  men  won't  fight  their  brother  men. 

"The  same  discovery  will  be  made  in  industry 
and  the  same  revolution  will  follow.  Intelligent 
men  need  no  bosses  and  no  captains  of  industry; 
they  contain  the  whole  in  their  own  minds.  The 
period  of  generalship  in  everything  is  passing 
away  by  the  elevation  of  the  people  above  the  level 
of  generals.  Industry  and  the  land,  both  Nature's 
capital,  must  be  open  fields  into  which  this  new 
type  of  able  individuals  may  enter  and  create,  free 
from  the  burden  of  the  present  form  of  private 
ownership. 

"For  private  ownership  is  a  burden.  It  ties  the 
owners;  it  weights  and  shackles  the  non-owners. 
Under  it  a  man  can  only  become  free  by  making 
himself  a  private  owner,  but  he  then  instantly 
assumes  another  kind  of  slavery — the  slavery  to 
what  he  owns.  Associate  ownership  delivers  men 
from  both  slaveries.  The  freedom,  independence 
and  equality  of  ownership  is  then  attained  by  all, 
its  responsibilities  and  enslaving  burdens  are  lifted 
from  the  individual  to  the  association,  which  has 
a  permanent  life,  while  individuals  composing  it 
may  come  and  go.  The  dog  in  the  manger,  private 
ownership,  being  removed,  nothing  will  prevent 
every  individual  from  the  fullest  industrial  de 
velopment  he  desires.  Industry  will  become  one 


i\i        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

of  the  higher  interests  of  mankind,  pursued  less 
for  'what  there  is  in  it'  in  the  narrowly  selfish 
sense  than  for  its  great  human  value  and  for  the 
conquest  of  its  unutterable  magic.  It  will  be  fol 
lowed  as  science  is  followed,  with  enthusiasm  and 
love.  The  soul  will  be  in  it. 

"The  problem  before  society  is  to  give  each  what 
he  creates,  while  so  providing  for  the  needs  of  each 
as  will  bring  the  greatest  development  to  all,  and 
the  fairest  apportionment  of  happiness. 

"To  clarify  this  let  us  advance  through  the 
problem  by  stages.  First,  what  would  it  be  for 
each  to  have  according  to  his  deserts,  under  ex 
istent  ideas  of  what  one  industrially  produces? 
The  idea  of  industrial  justice  is  that  he  is  to  have 
the  full  quota  of  what  he  creates :  if  his  deserts  are 
industrial  he  will  receive  proportionate  industrial 
return;  if  his  deserts  are  in  other  fields  than  in 
dustrial  he  will  be  able  to  develop  them,  not  caring 
for  large  industrial  rewards,  as  being  out  of  his 
line.  Standing  on  the  basis  of  a  good  living  earned 
by  the  physical  labor  necessary  for  health,  society 
gives  him  freedom  and  opportunity  for  develop 
ing  what  he  likes,  and  thus  he  has  his  deserts. 
They  are  not  material,  but  material  profusion  is 
not  his  desire;  if  it  were,  he  could  pursue  it  with 
the  certainty  of  success.  He  selects  otherwise. 

"This   is   the   position   of   one   least  favorably 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         113 

piaced — one  whose  chosen  product  is  not  sought 
and  purchased  by  others.  Instance  a  writer  of 
very  original  books,  or  of  those  very  necessary,  but 
unwelcome  to  mankind;  founders  of  new  depar 
tures  in  art,  science,  music,  or  morality.  Now  the 
world  starves  them — and  consequently,  starves  it 
self.  With  established  competence  from  simple 
work,  they  would  evolve  their  ideas  and  publish 
or  create  independently.  One  might  choose  to  be 
an  individual  university,  as  Socrates  was,  and  teach 
on  the  streets,  a  kind  forever  much  needed,  the  real 
life-giving  kind.  In  our  mental  anaemia  we  should 
call  such  demagogues. 

"This  depicts  the  lowest  material  condition  men 
could  be  in,  and  it  is  essentially  high.  It  would 
secure  for  the  first  time  in  the  world  true  intel 
lectual  freedom.  So-called  freedom  of  mind  with 
out  material  independence  of  all  men  is  a  shadow. 
The  equality  at  this  stage  comes  from  each  having 
ivliat  he  wants,  what  he  elects,  what  he  works  for. 
The  fact  that  he  could  have  as  much  as  any  mate 
rially  if  he  gave  his  efforts  to  that  line  destroys 
[lie  basis  of  material  pride. 

"A  second  stage,  which  would  represent  the 
prevalent  condition,  greatly  advances  the  material 
status  of  those  whose  special  interest  is  not  indus 
trial,  because  the  services  and  creations  of  these 
would  be  required  and  purchased  in  the  works  for 


H4        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

general  embellishment  and  sought  for  by  the  spe 
cialists  in  industry. 

"But  the  finality  of  this  method  of  apportioning 
industrial  income  is  shaken  by  the  reflection  that 
the  electors  of  an  industrial  career  do  what  they 
'like  quite  as  much  as  those  who  specialize  outside 
of  industry,  while  they  obtain,  besides  this,  a  much 
larger  material  portion.  Here  we  come  to  a  pro 
found  error  which  corrupts  all  economic  conclu 
sions  through  and  through.  The  gaining  and  so- 
called  production  of  material  wealth  has  been  given 
a  separate  and  unique  position  above  every  other 
activity;  it  has  been  made  the  standard  and  norm 
of  every  other  value.  Material  wealth  is  not  only 
made  the  standard  of  everything,  but  the  getters 
of  material  wealth  are  made  the  dictators  of  every 
thing.  The  avarice  faculties  have  been  ranked  at 
the  apex  of  all.  This  is  an  inversion  of  common 
sense,  the  exaltation  of  the  wealth  specialist  has 
done  unlimited  evil.  He  has  been  given  free  scope 
in  the  material  field,  as  if  material  production  were 
the  only  activity  to  wliicli,  by  inseparable  right, 
material  return  belonged.  It  belongs  just  as  in 
separably  to  many  other  activities  with  which 
material  creation  is  not  directly  bound.  The 
wealth  specialist  has  got  entirely  out  of  his  proper 
place  in  the  scheme  of  things. 

"Mankind  depends  on  material  wealth  for  well 


The  Monarch   Billionaire.         115 

being,  the  material  of  the  world  belongs  to  it  for 
this  purpose,  a  multitude  of  the  best  diverse  brains 
is  required  to  determine  the  right  application  of 
nature's  wealth  for  mankind's  good.  What  is 
actually  done?  The  whole  material  field  is  pre 
sented  as  a  gratuity  to  the  wealth  specialists,  men 
with  a  very  narrow  set  of  faculties,  those  by  nature 
the  most  selfish,  the  least  regardful  of  the  good  of 
mankind,  and  from  absorption  in  acquisition  the 
least  able  to  judge  the  good  of  mankind — to  these 
the  material  field  entire  is  given  to  work  up,  ex 
ploit  and  possess,  for  themselves,  leaving  mankind 
shorn  of  its  own  like  lambs  and  appointed  to  go 
nude. 

"Whatever  handfuls  of  fleece  these  specialists 
are  moved  to  give  to  mankind  for  its  good  are  re 
ceived  with  groveling  gratitude  as  a  generosity- 
yet  mankind  was  the  first  giver  of  everything  they 
have  to  these  specialists.  They  may  waste  every 
thing  ;  mankind  must  look  on  with  its  hands  in  its 
pockets.  And  as  it  usually  happens  from  the 
nature  of  the  case  that  these  acquisitors  are  brain 
less  and  incapable  in  all  other  fields — if  they  were 
not  they  would  not  make  acquisition  their  object — 
the  deciding  what  causes  and  interests  in  the  world 
shall  be  promoted  with  wealth  is  ceremoniously 
dedicated  to  the  brainless  and  incapable.  When 
it  is  a  question  of  wealth  to  establish  some  move- 


n6        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ment  for  the  upbuilding  of  mankind  the  gauntlet 
of  these  wealth  specialists,  the  brainless  and  in 
capable  in  questions  of  human  good,  has  to  be  run 
to  learn  whether  they  will  condescend  to  dole  out 
money  that  upbuilding  may  proceed. 

"The  point  is,  that  giving  control  of  the  wealth 
field  and  wealth  to  wealth  specialists  is  a  funda 
mental  and  egregious  blunder.  They  are  the  last 
men  to  whom  should  be  entrusted  direction  of  the 
uses  of  wealth. 

"This  opens  the  broad  question:  What  does 
the  so-called  wealth  producer  acting  in  society 
upon  productive  nature  (land  and  machinery) 
really  produce?  In  the  ultimate  analysis  what 
each  creates  is  determined  by  the  conditions  that 
society  wills  he  may  create  in.  There  is  nothing 
naturally  established  in  this  sphere.  Hence  a  man 
can  claim  nothing  as  produced  by  him  by  appeal 
ing  to  nature.  In  olden  time  'natural'  was  what 
he  could  obtain  by  hunting  and  fishing,  then  by 
agriculture  with  land  plenteous,  then  in  a  shop 
as  owner  of  his  own  machinery :  it  is  variable,  there 
is  nothing  natural,  permanent,  inherent  about  it, 
society  fixes  the  conditions.  So  there  are  no 
natural  rights.  And  yet  there  is  one  thing  that 
is  natural,  and  that  is  the  supreme  thing.  It  is 
intelligence.  What  the  highest  intelligence  dic 
tates  is  natural.  Hence,  in  this  supreme  sense, 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         1 1 7 

there  are  natural  rights.  Clearly,  they  vary  and 
advance,  because  intelligence  grows. 

"Contemplate  the  absurdity  of  the  most  basic 
ideas  of  personal  production.  The  simple  worker, 
the  cleaner  of  a  ditch,  is  ranked  as  least  pro 
ductive  and  is  least  paid,  and  yet  this  is  most 
creative  and  productive  work.  Shakespeare  died 
at  fifty-three  from  the  filth  of  the  town.  Years 
of  brilliant  creativeness  were  ahead  of  him.  ^  Had 
Goethe  died  at  fifty-three,  what  would  he  have 
left  comparatively?  The  men  who  had  kept  the 
town  clean  for  Shakespeare  and  preserved  him  to 
his  eightieth  year  would  have  produced  and  given 
the  world  a  second  Shakespeare.  How  many  great 
minds  have  been  lost  young  from  the  world's  filth 
there  is  no  estimating.  Whoever  had  kept  the 
world  clean  and  saved  those  minds  had  been  joint 
givers  of  them  to  the  world  and  joint  producers 
of  the  works  of  their  genius.  Yet  in  the  midnight 
sightlessness  of  political  economy  mere  cleaners 
rank  among  the  least  productive.  Which  properly 
'earn'  the  great  pay,  those  who  fit  up  the  world 
and  keep  it  in  repair  that  the  genius  may  serenely 
exercise  a  free  gift  from  above?  Or  the  genius 
himself?  Or  all  equally?  This  question  upsets 
customary  economics. 

"The  conclusion  is  that  both  by  right  and  nature 
the  ultimate  fixing  of  values  belongs  to  society,  and 


n8        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

the  rules  upon  which  it  will  resolve  will  be  deter 
mined  by  its  intelligent  well  being.  It  will  ar 
range  the  returns  of  effort  so  that  within  large 
limits  what  a  man  gains  will  depend  on  his  own 
exertions;  it  will  formulate  the  principles  of  pro 
duction  that  are  fairest,  and  a  man  will  have 
within  these  principles  what  he  produces:  but  it 
will  apportion  rewards  in  all  other  lines  than  mere 
material  production,  in  accordance  with  the  large 
equitable  principles  of  social  well-being,  no  longer 
permitting  the  production  of  material  things  to 
be  the  supreme  standard  and  arbiter  of  human 
activities  and  destinies." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         119 


CHAPTER  XI. 

GILES  now  declared  himself.    "While  I  perceive 
that  your  measures  would  solve  the  labor  and  cap-    v 
ital  problem  most  equitably,  I  don't  want  it  solved 
that  way. 

"I  am  a  capitalist.  I  own  things.  I  own  them 
absolutely.  It's  nature's  law.  The  highest  law  / 
is — Those  without  property  have  no  rights.  We 
throw  them  empty  sentiments  and  crusts  and  spout 
of  their  rights:  that  is  the  art  of  keeping  them 
slaves.  Call  them  free  slaves,  the  hollow  word  free 
reconciles  them  to  the  leaden  reality  of  slavery.  I 
have  convictions,  I'm  a  capitalist  from  principle. 
Capitalists  are  a  part  of  the  grand  order  of  nature. 
Nature  is  unalterable,  and  so  are  capitalists.  I 
didn't  have  that  opinion  when  I  set  out  in  life, 
but  Je-hu !  IVe  learned  a  mighty  lot  about  the 
bowels  of  everything  except  mercies  since  that 
time.  There's  nothing  like  making  money  to  teach 
you  the  laws  of  the  universe.  I'm  a  benefactor. 
I'm  guardian  of  the  poor  devils  that  work  for  me, 


I2O        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

and  are  not  fit  to  be  guardians  of  themselves. 
Fancy  me  in  partnership  with  the  simple  clowns  I 
have  to  command  as  a  general  over  privates! 
Could  everybody  in  an  army  be  general?  Didn't 
society  encourage  me  to  become  a  general?  And 
now  it  shall  stand  it;  I  say  it's  its  duty  to 
stand  it." 

"The  military  organization  of  industry,  with  its 
y  bespangled  commanders  and  insignificant  privates, 
is  the  very  thing  that  will  not  let  mankind  grow," 
ventured  Margaret.  "All  the  growth  goes  to  the 
commanders,  who  develop  atwist,  into  popes  and 
czars  of  power  and  irresponsibility.  The  industrial 
world  is  governed  by  court  martial.  It  was  ridicu 
lous  for  industry  to  have  borrowed  the  military 
form  of  organization,  when  the  army  type  of  things 
is  everywhere  a  millstone  to  be  cast  off." 

"What  society  gave,  it  can't  take  away,"  testily 
responded  Giles.  "It  gave  me  the  right  to  stand 
on  men!  What  should  I  live  for  if  I  couldn't  do 
that  ?  I  love  rule,  I  want  power,  and  am  going  to 
keep  it.  If  they  try  to  snatch  it  from  me,  I'll 
fight  for  it.  Money  will  go  a  long  way  in  a  fight. 
Man  was  made  to  sell  himself:  only  fanatics 
haven't  a  price.  Buying  men's  souls  and  ruling 
their  bodies  is  the  capitalist  nature,  as  society  cre 
ated  it.  What  do  I  care  for  mankind  ?  Just  what 
mankind  cared  for  me  when  it  let  me  loose,  a 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         121 

happy,  unformed  boy  full  of  trust  and  love,  among 
the  cruel  social  forces,  to  tame  them  under  me  or 
go  down  to  hell.  Where's  my  happiness?  I  went 
down  to  hell,  but  by  my  own  might  I  came  back, 
and  brought  hell  with  me.  I  won  hell  in  a  fair 
fight,  and  I  consider  society  in  solemn  compact 
with  me  to  permit  me  to  operate  this  hell  against  v 
it  while  I  live.  I  don't  care  what  happens  when 
I'm  dead;  no  capitalist  does.  What's  more,  so 
ciety  can't  help  it;  we  commanders  who  were  its 
creatures  are  now  society's  masters;  we're  too 
strong  for  it." 

"If  this  were  accepted,  and  I  admit  it  is  the 
capitalist's  position,  there  never  could  be  a  single 
inch  of  progress,  for  each  generation  would  have 
its  new  capitalist  generals,  demanding,  as  you  do, 
to  be  let  alone,"  said  Philip,  mournfully. 

"Capitalists  do  not  care  for  the  progress  of  the 
world,"  answered  Giles.  "We  care  to  own  and  rule  v 
the  world.  They  are  like  me,  though  perhaps  for 
reasons  of  policy  they  deny  it  and  pretend  to  phil 
anthropic  affection  for  the  convocation  of  dummies 
they  operate  with.  I  can  tell  you  that  men  who 
are  eaten  with  the  passion  to  absorb  everything 
can't  love  the  world.  Their  appetite  is  to  swallow 
it.  I  suppose  I  shock  you,  but  you  ought  to  be  v 
thankful  for  my  unusual  honesty;  others  lie  about 
it.  I  can't  change ;  life  has  set  my  nature  to  stone." 


122        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

The  colloquy  ended  seemingly  in  hopeless  en 
tanglement.  It  left  Margaret  disappointed  and 
unhappy,  signaling  to  her  the  premature  descent 
of  Giles  into  age.  The  early  petrefaction  of  busi 
ness  men's  minds  was  a  familiar  phenomenon,  and 
she  was  accustomed  to  the  unpleasant  sight  of  capi 
talists  aged  in  every  attribute  but  years.  The 
forces  of  a  money-maker's  brain  flow  in  the  one 
channel  of  acquisition,  where  they  wear  a  dee-p 
abyss;  when  the  fissure  is  cut  there  is  no  future 
changing,  the  brain  is  dead  to  alteration  or  ad 
vancement.  The  mind  is  drained  of  sap  intended 
for  a  variety  of  faculties,  all  of  it  passing  into  one, 
and  outside  of  a  monsteroid  faculty  the  man  is  a 
dry  pod.  The  spreading  rot,  of  course,  includes 
love.  Margaret  had  not  foreseen  that  Giles  might 
yield  to  this  malady  of  rich  men;  she  had  fondly 
thought,  as  those  who  love  do,  that  there  was  a 
difference  between  her  father  and  the  sordid  rab 
ble  of  rich  men,  so  that  although  he  might  do  the 
same  things  outwardly,  his  soul  was  lifted  above 
them.  It  is  the  natural  illusion  of  love.  Some 
wives  and  some  daughters  never  awake  from  it. 
There  is  a  life-long  halo  about  the  rascal  who  fills 
their  pockets  with  spending  money.  Margaret 
was  awakening.  The  suspicion  that  her  loved  com 
rade  was  identical  with  the  wretched  crowd  of 
money-makers  whom  she  read  accurately  and  thor- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         123 

oughly  despised,  was  the  hardest  blow  that  she 
had  sustained  in  fife. 

Neither  was  Giles  happy.  The  nearness  of  an 
intellectual  parting  with  the  single  person  he  loved 
pierced  him  with  sharp  questionings.  Were  they 
to  fall  asunder  in  life  and  feeling  ?  He  asked  him 
self  this  with  terror  in  the  thought.  Is  it  impos 
sible  for  one  generation  to  understand  another? 
Old  Giles  took  counsel  with  himself  and  planned 
his  way.  Margaret  and  Philip,  in  the  exaltation 
and  half-sighted  kittenishness  of  love,  had  been 
dallying  with  wrong  ideas,  and  he  must  correct 
them.  They  must  be  coached  to  detect  their  folly 
with  their  own  eyes  to  be  convinced.  Giles  in 
tensely  believed  in  the  soundness  of  his  own  per 
ceptions  on  life,  but  young  folks  are  skittish,  and 
can't  be  driven  up  to  common  sense;  give  them 
space  and  they  will  run  themselves  into  ripeness 
and  regularity.  Plenty  of  money  to  throw  away, 
the  insidious  drug  of  luxury,  and  a  few  smart 
knocks  from  ungrateful  labor  never  failed ;  he  had 
seen  thousands  of  verdant  young  enthusiasts  for 
sake  their  reformatory  ardors  to  become  as  set  and 
feelingless  in  their  capitalist  qualities  as  himself. 
Association  with  success  is  the  best  antidote  for 
soul. 

Giles  therefore  revised  his  tactics  and  summoned 
another  council  of  The  Amalgamated. 


124        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"I  believe  all  I  said  the  other  day/'  he  began, 
"I  don't  go  back  on  any  of  it,  but  I  didn't  take 
account  that  you  must  learn  by  your  own  experi 
ence,  not  mine.  I'll  tell  you  where  you're  all  at 
sea,  and  then  you  may  go  to  work  as  you  will  and 
find  out  if  I'm  wrong  or  right.  It's  in  your  idea 
of  the  workingman.  I  know  him,  root  and  stom 
ach,  core  and  husk — mostly  husk.  I  have  nothing 
against  him  except  that  he  is  a  fool — and  I  don't 
lay  that  up,  for  I  make  my  living  out  of  it.  Eely 
on  that  in  all  circumstances,  and  you'll  never  be 
disappointed  in  him.  Learning  it  is  the  gall  a 
generous  young  employer  has  to  drink.  Perhaps 
learning  it  does  make  a  beast  of  the  employer,  I'll 
not  say,  but  if  it  does  it's  a  beast  from  a  cause. 
God  made  the  world;  he  made  workingmen  what 
they  are,  and  is  responsible. 

"Look  at  the  laboring  man,  look  at  him !  He  be 
longs  to  the  kingdom  of  dupes  and  mollusks,  and 
prefers  to.  He  doesn't  have  to  be  a  cart-horse  for 
his  own  kind,  does  he?  Isn't  he  from  five  to 
twenty-five  thousand  to  one  against  his  employer? 
/  Talk  of  emancipating  workingmen  from  capitalists 
sounds  like  emancipating  elephants  from  mice. 
Only,  the  workingman  hasn't  brains,  and  so  ought 
to  be  where  he  is.  Burden-bearing  cattle  they  are, 
and  will  be.  You  couldn't  induce  him  to  be  any 
thing  else.  Try  it.  Can't  he  think?  Can't  he 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         125 

plan?  Can't  he  vote?  Can't  he  use  the  plain 
means  staring  him  in  the  nose?  Offer  him  free 
dom,  equality,  owning  co-partnership  complete  and 
gratis  without  a  helping  act  of  his — he  would  re 
fuse  ;  if  you  urged  him  to  take  the  gift,  look  out, 
he  would  probably  kill  you  for  a  meddling  enemy. 
Why  should  I  force  my  property  on  these  un 
willing,  thankless  scoundrels?" 

"Because  it  is  theirs,  and  men  'with  your  ideas 
have  made  them  what  they  are." 

"I  know  a  better  way  to  make  them  happy. 
Insult  them  one  day  and  speak  to  them  friendly 
by  their  first  names  the  next,  salting  your  goodness 
with  a  slap  on  the  back  now  and  then.  They  like 
it  better  than  salary,  it  goes  further — and  it's 
cheap.  'There's  the  fine  master  for  you/  they 
chirp  in  their  shop  slang;  'he's  strong,  no  fooling 
with  him,  he  will  have  his  own  way/  And  they  . 
worship  me !  They  respect  me  for  abusing  them ! 
I  make  them  feel  my  heavy  tread  on  their  spines 
all  the  time,  and  the  least  passing  let-up  sets  them 
to  cheering  with  gratitude.  With  fear  and  flattery 
I  hold  them  in  a  great  spell.  I  cut  their  wages 
and  ask  a  party  of  their  leaders  to  dinner  with  me. 

The  rank  and  file  growl,  but  say,  'He's  a  d d 

good  chap  anyhow,  not  too  proud  to  invite  Patrick 
and  James  to  sit  at  the  table  with  him/  and  the 
cut  stands  good  till  I  make  another  one.  Work- 


126        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ing-class  leaders  are  hoppingly  moved  by  politeness 
from  their  masters,  and  through  them  you  can  drag 
the  whole  working  mass  into  any  hole  where  you 
want  it." 

"Do  you  mean  that  their  leaders  are  treacher 
ous  r 

"Why  use  that  unsavory  word  ?  Who  can  read 
a  man's  heart  ?  I  read  their  acts.  What  I  know 
is  that  they  are  weak,  childishly,  pitifully,  dot- 
ingly  weak,  and  dreadfully  impressed  by  anything 
coming  down  from  a  higher  class.  They  squirm 
under  contempt,  at  being  looked  down  on/  and 
if  you  lubricate  their  feelings  with  a  little  grease 
of  respect  from  above,  the  honor  gives  them  a 
positive  trance;  they  are  yours.  Also  use  their 
cupidity  for  small  political  offices,  which  raise 
them  a  couple  of  pegs  above  their  mates,  and  your 
hook  is  in  their  gills.  They  dance  to  your  whistle 
as  the  filings  follow  a  magnet.  But  they  are 
shrewd  enough  not  to  let  their  supporters  under 
stand  the  trick,  and  it  is  dead  easy  to  keep  them 
blind.  They  say  to  their  labor  .constituency :  'Labor 
is  being  recognized,  see  what  a  power  it  is  getting 
to  be !  You  have  forced  your  enemies  to  give  your 
representatives  political  places,  where  they  (we) 
can  guard  your  interests.'  These  fellows  know 
that  their  pull  with  me  depends  on  their  followers 
being  kept  hoodwinked  to  the  truth.  It  isn't 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         127 

treachery  that  prompts  them,  it  is  just  sheer  weak 
ness.  The  minions  haven't  quite  the  brains  re 
quired  to  see  that  they  keep  themselves  down  with 
their  class  by  their  selfish  conduct,  and  their  sim 
ple-minded  class  wouldn't  understand  it  either. 
Almost  any  one  of  them  promoted  to  office  would 
do  the  same  thing." 

"That  is  no  apology  for  your  letting  them  do  it 
and  profiting  by  their  obtuseness.  There  is  no 
extenuation  for  capitalists  playing  on  all  the  fee 
bleness  of  the  toilers  to  hold  them  servile/' 

"Industry  would  stop  if  we  didn't/'  asserted 
Giles.  "Not  a  wheel  would  turn,  anarchy  and 
chaos  would  reign." 

"There  must  be  intelligent  unselfish  men  among 
them." 

"There  are,  but  they  are  helpless  against  the 
crowd,  which  whoops  after  the  small-witted  or 
unprincipled  posing  manipulator.  Convinced  of 
the  folly  and  childishness  of  their  class  they  have 
given  up  trying.  Sick  at  heart  some  of  them  turn 
cynics,  stand  in  with  their  employers  and  scheme 
for  promotion  out  of  their  class." 

"That  is  base." 

Giles  elevated  his  shoulders.  "It  is  this  baseness 
that  saves  capitalism.  If  brains  stayed  with  the 
workers  we  should  be  soon  ousted.  I  was  a  part 
of  working-class  brains,  but  like  the  rest  I  left." 


128         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"If  they  learn  to  stay?" 
"We'll  offer  larger  bribes  and  pull  them  out." 
"One  word  about  the  labor  leaders  as  I  have 
observed  them/'  said  Margaret.  "It  is  true  they 
are  largely  a  haphazard  selection  and  that,  as 
with  politicians,  self-interest  is  a  considerable  mo 
tive  with  them.  As  their  chief  weakness  I  should 
place  my  finger  on  their  uninstructedness.  They 
are  most  of  them  men  of  narrow  ideas;  they  have 
not  read  or  thought  on  social  problems  or  studied 
the  question  of  improving  the  structure  of  so 
ciety  ;  they  are  constantly  immersed  in  petty  labor 
tangles  of  an  immediate  nature.  Hence  they  lack 
breadth  of  mind  and  do  nothing  to  cultivate  it. 
In  large  economics  they  are  as  little  versed  and 
as  little  interested  as  the  average  retail  store 
keeper,  which  is  the  gravest  charge  of  ignorance 
that  could  be  brought  against  a  class.  It  is  no 
torious  that  the  retail  storekeeper  would  rather 
do  anything  but  think.  I  asked  a  successful  strike 
leader  if  he  did  not  think  the  capitalist  class  must 
go.  He  lifted  his  shoulders  as  much  as  to  say 
that  question  was  wholly  out  of  his  beat,  and  re 
plied,  "That  is  a  long  way  off/  Labor  leaders 
being  men  without  intellectual  outlook,  or  courage 
to  face  large  principles  of  change,  are  easily  whee 
dled  by  men  of  the  other  class  with  instructed  and 
unprincipled  minds. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         129 

"But  I  wanted  to  ask  you  this :  If  the  masses 
should  go  into  politics  as  united  workingmen 
against  the  clan  of  owners — as  Socialists — what 
then?" 

"They  will  not.  Politics  is  our  strongest  hold. 
We  can  buy  out  their  staunchest  leaders  there, 
piously  and  through  a  hedge  fence  of  course/' 

"It  has  not  happened  so  abroad." 

"For  a  simple  reason,,  always  overlooked/'  an 
swered  Giles.  "Mark  what  I  say.  There  brains 
can  not  rise  even  as  here,  social  caste  is  too  bony 
and  frigid,  hence  the  chief  career  for  subclass 
brains  is  to  stay  with  their  own  people;  with  us 
a  bottom  class  man  believes  he  can  attain  any 
thing  because  his  grandfather  could ;  anything  but 
ancestors,  and  those  he  can  buy  with  his  daughter. 
In  politics  the  commonest  runt  can  rise  in  a  cer 
tain  way.  The  sweets  of  political  power  and  re 
sulting  material  grandeur  will  always  be  too  much 
for  the  demagogic  men  in  whom  the  masses  ever 
confide.  They  will  go  over  to  the  rich  enemy  in 
their  hearts.  In  the  real  men  of  high  type  the 
masses  never  confide,  it  is  not  man's  way.  The 
gross  put  up  their  own  gross  sort  to  represent  and 
defend  them.  A  taste  of  political  power  curdles 
the  good  in  any  nature.  Look  at  our  statesmen! 
The  whole  political  system  is  wrong  for  popular 


130        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

emancipation,  and  its  ingenious  abortiveness  is  the 
Gibraltar  of  our  capitalist  class." 

"But  the  masses  can  change  the  political  sys 
tem." 

"Not  a  bit  of  danger,  they  are  too  thirsty  for 
political  success.  They  can  change  it,  yes,  but 
why  haven't  they?  They  won't.  Won't  is  the 
worst  form  of  can't.  They  can't  even  get  a  sen 
ator  elected  by  the  people's  direct  vote.  After 
political  success,  they  say,  we  will  fumigate  the 
stables  and  purify  and  regenerate  the  polluted 
political  system.  It  will  be  then  too  late,  for 
having  won  in  by  evil  methods  and  eaten  the  sop 
of  sin  their  power-drunk  leaders  will  not  permit 
it.  And  it  is  a  question  how  much  radicalism  and 
reconstruction  they  will  see  good  to  permit,  too. 
Socialists  are  not  straining  much  to  reduce  the  po 
litical  leader  from  his  inflated  eminence,  and  cer 
tainly  not  to  eradicate  the  party  spirit  which  pre 
serves  the  most  potent  modern  slavery;  they  are 
building  up  a  party  machine  and  a  party  instinct 
quite  as  rigid  and  terrible  as  any  we  ever  had,  and 
with  that  we  shall  defeat  them.  We  shall  point 
out  the  tyranny  of  their  political  methods  to  the 
working  classes,  and  inquire  if  they  wish  to  commit 
industry  and  their  whole  lives  to  such  tyrants. 
That  will  cause  their  downfall,  because  the  en 
lightened  world  is  getting  sicker  and  sicker  of 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         131 

parties  and  party  tyranny.  And  you  must  have 
observed  the  Socialist  tendency  to  raise  up  leaders, 
advertise  them,  and  having  clapped  the  coat  of 
committee-made  distinction  on  them,  to  defer  to 
and  follow  them  as  if  they  wore  a  heaven-formed 
halo.  Make  a  rag-baby  hero  with  your  own  hands, 
idolize  it,  then  call  on  the  population  to  obey  it, 
or  call  down  damnation  on  the  population.  The 
early  Jews  loved  this  ceremony  when  they  manu 
factured  kings  to  walk  on  them." 

"The  working  people  can  be  taught  that  the 
political  party  is  inevitably  an  institution  of  des 
potism  and  slavery." 

"Try  it.  Their  leaders  have  learned  their  an 
swer  already.  They  will  say  that  organization  is 
needed  to  fight  organization,  that  old  parties  are 
rigidly  organized;  so  must  Socialists  be.  What 
would  you  answer  them  ?" 

"I  would  answer  that  Socialists  must  teach 
themselves  that  their  political  party  is  but  a  tem 
porary  and  exceedingly  dangerous  instrument ;  that 
the  people  are  always  betrayed  by  political  leaders, 
the  exception  being  too  rare  to  notice;  that  re 
formers  or  Socialists  placed  in  political  leadership 
are  just  as  little  able  to  bear  the  strain  as  other 
men,  because  the  position  confers  powers  and  au 
thority  on  them  that  no  men  ought  to  have ;  that 
the  party  rank  and  file  must  be  sharply  watchful 


132         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

to  keep  its  officers  in  the  relation  of  servants  or 
agents  to  do  what  they  are  told  by  the  member 
ship,  and  not  to  take  things  into  their  own  hands 
and  direct  the  party ;  that  the  spirit  of  action  and 
initiation  must  be  strongly  fostered  in  each  indi 
vidual,  repudiating  the  idea  that  it  is  only  for 
officials  and  leaders  to  be  initiators.  For  in  par 
ties  the  leaders  hold  the  position  of  capitalist 
employers,  and  develop  the  capitalist  character. 
They  lift  themselves  to  the  front  and  hold  it  to 
be  their  divine  right  to  run  things.  Just  as  the 
capitalist  is  to  be  obliterated,  the  guiding  politician 
is  to  be  expunged.  Industrial  guidance  is  to  come 
from  the  rank  and  file  as  equals ;  political  guidance 
must  come  from  them  likewise ;  and  it  is  glaringly 
inconsistent  to  build  up  a  party  of  progress  that  is 
not  composed  of  equal  co-partners,  but  has  the 
capitalist  model  of  leadership  and  boss-ship.  The 
rank  and  file  will  learn  this,  perhaps  after  some 
hard  bumps,  and  will  erect  themselves  as  party 
privates  into  movers  and  managers,  and  reduce  the 
officers,  committees  and  machine  organizations  to 
clerks  and  transacters  of  orders/' 

"Very  good,"  said  Giles,  "but  the  rank  and  file 
will  need  about  five  hundred  more  years  of  punish 
ment  before  they  can  brighten  up  to  bridle  their 
would-be  leaders  and  representatives  in  that  way, 
and  by  then  they  may  have  learned  to  lead  them- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         133 

selves  without  leaders.  Mankind's  dearest  weak 
ness  is  its  trust  of  leaders,  but  that  is  in  the  grain." 

"The  plan  we  have  presented  to  you  does  away 
with  leaders  at  once,  and  with  the  need  of  relying 
on  effete  political  processes  for  social  progress — 
and  therefore  capitalists  ought  to  favor  it,"  de 
clared  Margaret.  "It  permits  capitalists  for  once 
to  be  surpassing  initiators  and  to  introduce  a  new 
note  into  human  affairs.  Instead  of  leaving  force 
to  arbitrate  the  destiny  of  mankind  they  can  call 
in  intelligence.  Must  force  and  hatred  always 
pioneer  the  great  changes?  Why,  the  monstrous 
capitalists  to-day  have  the  privilege  of  inaugurat 
ing  the  system  of  equal  partnerships  and  taking  the 
ordering  of  revolutionary  events  away  from  control 
of  stupid,  blundering,  selfish  politics.  What  a 
chance!  They  thirst  for  renown,  they  will  make 
their  names  famous  to  the  end  of  time.  Theirs 
is  the  grandest  opportunity  for  human  good  ever 
given  to  men.  Their  voluntary  act  will  finish  the 
Age  of  Hate  and  mark  the  chief  era  of  human  his 
tory.  It  will  carry  the  race  over  the  great  abyss, 
accomplishing  man's  graduation  from  the  brute 
into  full  humanhood. 

"And  see  how  mortally  blind  and  fanatical 
these  owners  will  be  if  they  reject  the  privilege ! 
For,  using  the  rough  tool  politics  in  the  rough 
selfish  way,  the  people  will  shear  them  of  power 


134        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

and  property  anyway.  The  announcement  of  this 
doom  is  flaming  on  the  wall.  Then  they  who  in 
selfishness  and  blindness  blocked  the  world  will 
be  remembered  only  to  be  despised.  Their  lot 
will  be  embittered  while  they  live,  for  as  opponents 
of  humanity's  good  they  cannot  be  loved;  the 
change  they  might  render  so  easy  will  be  painful 
and  hard;  and  if  in  angry  obstinacy  they  resist, 
they  may  bring  on  war  and  revolution  with  their 
scorching  trail  of  universal  misfortunes,  their  re 
actions  and  retardations.  And  the  social  resultant 
of  either  politics  or  war  is  likely  to  be  inferior  to 
what  can  be  naturally  established  by  the  capitalists 
themselves  through  equal  partnerships." 

Giles  laughed.  "Capitalists  are  not  seeking  an 
opportunity  to  be  good.  Kings  only  abbreviate 
themselves  when  they  are  taken  by  the  neck  and 
made  to,  and  capitalists  are  like  them.  When  the 
people  grant  despotic  strength  to  individuals  they 
will  never  get  it  back  except  by  taking  it  back. 
However,,  I  was  going  to  propose  something.  T 
want  to  convince  you  that  the  laborers  are  not 
worth  your  interest  in  them.  If  you  can  win  in  a 
fair  contest  and  bring  the  people  we  employ  over  to 
your  side  I  will  yield.  You  can  do  what  you  please 
to  convert  them,  but  it  mustn't  be  known  that 
you're  doing  it,  for  then  they  would  all  flock  after 
you  as  their  proprietors.  I  will  defeat  you  by 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         135 

using  the  measures  that  every  employer  applies 
when  necessary.  Will  you  be  satisfied  with  this 
test?" 

"We  can  at  least  make  the  test/'  they  consented. 

Philip  and  Margaret  began  the  tournament  by 
looking  for  some  one  to  organize  their  projects  and 
introduce  their  ideas  to  the  public.  Philip  searched 
the  universities  in  vain  for  such  a  person.  There 
were  numberless  trained  men,  but  none  who  had 
modern  ideas.  Several  were  capable  of  telling 
what  Tiberius  Gracchus  had  done  in  an  emergency, 
but  they  thought  that  popular  complaints  had 
deceased  with  Eome.  While  the  historians  could 
give  the  dates  of  all  human  improvements  begin 
ning  with  the  Stone  Age,  they  looked  upon  one 
who  believed  in  further  improvements  as  a  marvel 
if  not  a  threatening  monstrosity.  The  economists 
told  Philip  that  the  one  unpleasant  thing  in  so 
ciety  was  friction,  which  they  were  rapidly  think 
ing  away,  and  they  implored  him  not  to  cause  more 
of  it  by  counter  reflections  and  postpone  perfection 
just  as  they  were  about  to  seize  it  in  theory. 

One  was  at  length  found  in  the  obscure  person 
of  Horace  Gray,  who  had  given  himself  an  inde 
pendent  education  by  working  at  proof-reading  in 
the  nights  and  had  then  gathered  a  cluster  of  ac 
cordant  spirits.  The  result  of  Gray's  engagement 
was  an  Economic  School  for  the  People  in  the 


136        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

centre  of  Steel  Haven,  to  teach  them  popular 
rights.  Where  the  money  came  from  remained  to 
the  population  a  guess ;  it  plainly  took  money  and 
was  therefore  respected.  Most  of  the  mill  people 
had  never  heard  that  such  vigorous  doctrines  were 
thought  and  they  trembled  at  the  vengeance  of 
Old  Giles  when  that  Jupiter  should  learn  of  their 
being  preached  in  the  very  shadow  of  his  smoke 
stacks. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         137 


CHAPTER  XII. 

IT  had  never  been  known  that  Giles  was  inter 
ested  in  religion,  but  now  he  became  devotedly  so. 
He  provided  funcis  for  an  Iron  Works  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
Temple  to  improve  the  men  spiritually.  He  called  * 
together  the  dispensers  of  the  gospel  of  all  creeds 
and  shook  their  hands  warmly.  This  for  an  avowed 
atheist  was  a  sign  of  softening  which  moved  the 
good  men. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said,,  "churches  all  have  debts, 
debts  are  a  function  of  religion,  what  can  I  do 
for  you?" 

Each  named  the  amount  of  his  religious  liabili 
ties  and  received  a  check  to  cancel  them. 

Said  Giles,  "There  are  heresies  and  evil  teach 
ings  springing  up  to  grapple  with  truth  in  our 
midst;  none  are  so  well  armed  as  yourselves  to 
throttle  these  deadly  speculations.  If  neglected 
they  may  undermine  your  influence  and  cost  you 
many  contributing  converts.  The  mission  of  the  J 
church  is  to  console  men  for  the  poverty  thrust 


138        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

upon  them  by  capitalists.  Capitalists  are  therefore 
the  holy  pillar  of  the  population's  faith.  Justice 
is  the  deadliest  enemy  of  your  salaries.  Eeligion 
has  for  its  cornerstone  the  misery  of  mankind  and 
would  perish  if  men  were  happy.  When  you  need 
funds  call  on  me." 

Nevertheless  the  Economic  School  fretted  Giles. 
He  had  his  spotters  out  to  learn  its  frequenters, 
and  gave  the  foremen  a  tip  to  trump  up  reasons  for 
N,  ordering  them  to  do  better  work  or  expect  dis 
charge.  Attendance  on  the  school  speedily  dwin 
dled,  especially  of  men  with  families. 

Giles  also  introduced  a  system  of  old  age  pen 
sions.  When  a  workman  arrived  at  the  age  of 
sixty  after  working  consecutively  forty  years  for 
The  Amalgamated  without  striking  or  other  mis 
demeanors,  he  was  to  receive  thirty  cents  a  day  for 
the  balance  of  his  life,  to  be  drawn  from  a  sum 
of  which  he  had  contributed  half  during  the  forty 
active  years.  Should  he  die  before  sixty  his  life 
contributions  were  to  divert  to  a  sinking  fund 
whose  interest  would  eventually  pay  other  work 
men's  accident  insurance  bills. 

Upon  a  couple  of  valuable  devices  Giles  centred 
lively  hopes.  These  were  profit-sharing  and  the  is 
suance  of  employes'  stock.  Into  one  of  his  clusters 
of  mills  using  twenty-five  thousand  men  the  trade 
union  had  wedged  itself,  and  Giles  resolved  to  ex- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        139 

pel  it.  The  men  were  notified  that  all  deserters 
from  the  organization  would  receive  five  per  cent, 
of  the  annual  profits  of  their  branch  of  the  work, 
the  distribution  to  be  made  proportionately  to 
their  current  wages  or  salaries.  It  was  singular 
how  quickly  and  magically  the  plan  prevailed,  in 
stantly  shattering  the  spine  of  the  union. 

The  stock  issue  system  was  introduced  in  the 
remainder  of  the  works  under  the  a3gis  of  The 
Amalgamated  Fish,  Ship,  Iron,  Transportation, 
Coal  and  Steel  Company,  which  were  located  in 
Steel  Haven  and  various  other  industrial  foci. 
The  employes  falling  within  this  benevolence 
counted  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand.  To  these 
sufficient  stock  in  The  Amalgamated  was  to  be 
sold  to  net  them  profits  as  follows :  Whenever  the 
profits  of  the  company  reached  $80,400,000  for 
the  year,  $400,000  should  be  distributed  to  the 
workers  as  their  dividends;  that  is,  when  Giles 
received  $80,000,000  income  above  his  salary,  each 
servant  of  the  company  should  have  two  dollars 
and  fifty  cents  over  his  regular  annual  pay.  Giles 
thought  this  very  handsome.  He  put  eighty 
million  dollars  in  his  pocket  and  his  men  dis 
tributed  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  among  a 
hundred  and  sixty-two  thousand  pockets.  The 
right  to  purchase  stock,  however,  which  was  rigidly 
limited,  was  so  apportioned  among  the  employes 


140        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

that  the  higher  or  salaried  ones  could  secure  more 
while  the  wage-paid  were  restricted  to  less — witli 
the  consequence  that  when  Giles'  bonus  touched 
$80,000,000  the  average  laborer's  extra  would  be 
from  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar. 

The  resourceful  Giles  regarded  this  scheme,  an 
emanation  entirely  from  his  own  brain  under  fear 
of  what  industrial  radicalism  might  do  unless 
checked,  as  a  master  invention.  The  workmen 
would  now  realize  that  they  were  capitalists  and 
feel  capitalistic,  which  would  stop  their  ears  to  the 
agitator  and  demagogue.  They  would  see  a  big 
future  ahead  and  work  for  it  with  strenuous  in 
tensity.  For  if  they  could  double  Giles'  profit  to 
$160,000,000  annually,  the  profits  of  each  of  them 
would  be  doubled — from  one  to  two  dollars, 
or  from  ten  to  twenty;  while  to  even  further  in 
flame  their  avarice  Giles  made  another  most  liberal 
concession,  providing  that  as  often  as  they  doubled 
his  income  their  reward  should  be  half  greater  on 
the  second,  third  and  fourth  eighty  millions  of  his 
profits  than  on  the  first — meaning  that  upon  the 
second  eighty  million,  600,000  instead  of  400,000 
dollars  should  be  for  their  distributive  share. 

Giles  wisely  computed  that  these  generous 
measures  would  operate  on  the  men  ideally.  Psy 
chology  was  a  great  factor  in  his  assets.  The 
measures  would  induce  in  them  a  sense  of  owner- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         141 

ship  in  the  whole  concern;  strikes  would  neces 
sarily  cease;  feeling  themselves  responsible  part 
ners  they  would  thenceforth  reanimate  their  ener 
gies,  save  waste,  curtail  expenses  and  toil  like 
demons — adding  innumerable  millions  to  the  prof 
its  of  The  Amalgamated,,  for  which  The  Amalga 
mated  would  pay  them  at  the  rate  of  about  seven 
thousand  dollars  for  each  million. 

Having  adopted  this  frugal  speculation  Giles  no 
longer  feared  ideas  or  revolutionary  inroads.  If 
incendiaries  should  declaim  to  his  men  in  favor 
of  taking  their  own,  he  would  only  need  to  explain 
that  if  they  should  rob  him  of  his  eighty  or  a 
hundred  and  sixty  million  dollars'  profits,,  they 
would  cruelly  rob  themselves  of  from  fifty  cents 
to  twenty  dollars'  annual  profits  each.  His  sorrow 
would  be  small  for  himself  compared  with  what  he 
would  feel  for  them.  He  would  show  them  that 
$80,000,000  distributed  equally  among  one  hun 
dred  and  sixty  thousand  of  them  would  add  to  their 
incomes  only  a  paltry  $500  each,  that  $160,000,000 
divided  would  give  them  but  $1,000  more,  sums 
so  insignificant  as  not  to  be  worth  the  trouble  of 
division,  so  that  it  was  better  for  him  to  keep  it 
all.  He  could  make  a  healthier  use  of  it  than  they, 
who  would  probably  squander  it  on  uselessly  edu 
cating  their  children  and  other  foolish  additions 
to  their  happiness,  such  as  plain  people  in  a  land 


142         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

of  simplicity  and  democratic  equality  had  no  right 
to  expect. 

If  there  were  any  unreasoning  fire-heads  among 
them  who  preferred  a  profit  of  a  thousand  a  year 
to  one  dollar,  they  would  be  restrained  by  the  sane 
discretion  of  those  abler  men  enriched  by  the 
larger  blocks  of  stock.  The  salaried  and  high- 
wage  contingent  Giles  cherished  as  his  strongest 
bulwark.  They  made  his  cause  their  religion,  as 
if  they  were  individually  the  beneficiaries,  and  not 
he,  of  the  hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  annual 
gain.  Giles  probed  his  own  heart  to  find  why  they 
did  this  and  was  baffled.  Many  of  these  officers 
of  his  mercenary  army  could  not  afford  domestic 
help,  with  their  incomes;  their  too  soon  faded 
child-worn  wives  were  sorry  pictures  of  bloodless 
womanhood.  Yet  each  wife  possessed  some  jewels 
and  at  least  one  costly  gown  to  wear  at  the  houses 
of  Giles'  best  salaried  subordinates — the  envied 
aristocracy  of  their  world — whose  social  recogni 
tion,  though  lean  in  quality,  was  the  spiritual 
bread  of  life  to  the  strivers  of  lesser  rank. 

The  meagre  gems  and  glittering  gowns  of  these 
weary  wives  caused  the  husbands  to  be  zealous  po 
licemen  over  the  obedience  and  contentment  of 
the  wage  population.  Few  of  these  salaried  offi 
cers  were  healthy.  Giles  found  it  profitable  to 
keep  them  in  a  good  deal  of  care  about  the  future 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         143 

— doubt  on  the  subject  of  a  living  stimulated  zeal 
— and  to  absorb  a  little  more  than  their  daily 
vitality  into  The  Amalgamated.  If,  besides  ex 
hausting  themselves  for  him,  there  were  any  ad 
dicted  to  the  vice  of  reflection,  they  would  sooner 
break  and  become  harmless.  But  few  of  his  host 
used  their  brains  for  anything  but  the  enrichment 
of  Giles. 

A  group  of  highest  wage-men  Giles  called  his 
Imperial  Guard.  They  were  his,  soul  and  body; 
noble  trusty  fellows  who  never  asked  why  he 
wanted  a  thing  done,  but  did  it.  His  will  was  their 
morality.  He  was  the  core  and  circumference  of 
their  religion.  When  Giles  rose  on  them  it  was 
light,  when  he  frowned  it  was  their  night.  It 
was  a  chosen  company  that  included  his  foremen, 
sub-foremen  and  corporal-bosses.  They  could 
smell  depravity  across  a  precinct.  Unless  the  air 
they  lived  v  in  was  tainted  with  trickery  they 
drooped.  They  combined  with  their  animal  fidel 
ity  the  highly  technical  qualities  of  the  political 
grafter  for  whom  we  build  city  halls.  They  were 
in  fact  the  men  who  did  politics  for  The  Amalga 
mated — they  voted  the  body  of  Giles'  workmen  for 
him.  Some  of  their  pay  was  understood  to  be  '* 
earned  by  this  political  service. 

Giles   maintained   that   he   morally   owned   the 
vote  of  all  his  men.     He  supported  them,  and  ex- 


144        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

pected  whatever  financial  value  they  had  in  them ; 
their  votes  were  a  value.  Through  their  franchises 
and  his  huge  wealth  Giles  was  a  formidable  factor 
in  State  and  National  politics,  being  able  to  hold 
up  either  party  for  policies  that  swelled  the  deluge 
of  his  earnings.  The  Senate  never  voted  on  a 
weighty  measure  without  waiting  for  his  private 
tip.  His  argument  for  political  proprietorship  of 
his  servants  was  that  he  fed  them  to  be  useful,  he 
wouldn't  keep  them  alive  to  injure  him,  and  if 
they  voted  against  his  interests  they  would  injure 
him.  It  would  be  their  suicide  too,  for  his  and 
their  interests  were  identical.  A  workingman  who 
should  use  the  ballot  for  a  selfish  purpose  of  his 
own  could  not  eat  his  bread. 

Giles'  political-industrial  lieutenants  knew  how 
every  chick  in  The  Amalgamated  political  incuba 
tor  voted,  for  there  were  no  secrets  in  the  Aus 
tralian  ballot  beyond  their  reading;  if  one  voted 
"wrong"  he  was  soon  on  the  road  chasing  a  new 
job,  and  these  were  days  when  in  spite  of  the  glit 
tering  prosperity  celebrated  by  Giles  new  jobs  were 
hard  to  catch.  The  members  of  the  Imperial 
Guard  received  from  two  to  four  dollars  a  day,  for 
which  they  unfailingly  delivered  the  goods;  in 
these  times  of  population  and  liberal  education  the 
best  mechanic  and  subaltern  political  brains  are 
not  dear.  It  was  one  of  Giles'  perennial  amuse- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         145 

ments,  watching  the  spell  exercised  on  his 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  manufacturing  menials 
by  his  faithful  company,  the  Guards.  They  were 
the  watch  dogs  of  the  sheep,  serving  him  for  a 
bone — but  watch  dogs  minus  teeth.  If  the  lambs 
had  revolted  the  dogs  had  been  helpless,  but  the 
charm  was  that  the  multitude  of  lambs  never  took 
the  disease  of  revolt. 

If  we  must  say  it,  Giles  had  them  inoculated 
with  a  powerful  anti-insurrection  toxin.  It  had 
been  his  way  for  a  long  time  to  swing  about  from 
place  to  place  in  his  industrial  domains  on  Sunday 
mornings  to  give  a  semi-preachment  to  a  series 
of  Sabbath  classes,  when  he  showed  his  men  their 
opportunities  and  resuscitated  their  ambitions. 
His  speeches  were  of  this  order : 

"I  am  one  who  rose  from  nothing,  you  can  all 
do  it.  There  are  still  industries  to  combine  and 
the  chance  is  free.  Be  industrious  and  seize  the 
opportunity.  Would  you  permit  yourselves  to  be 
robbed  of  these  glorious  possibilities?  Save  your 
money  and  start  a  Trust.  Cling  fast  to  the  sys 
tem  of  your  forefathers,  for  there  are  lying  agita 
tors  abroad,  without  a  capital  to  anything  but 
their  names,  ready  to  snatch  these  opportunities 
from  you.  It  is  just  for  those  who  form  the  con 
solidations  to  own  the  consolidations  through  the 
life  of  mankind,  and  even  then  their  posterity  will 


146        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

have  been  badly  paid.  We  cheapen  prices — you 
can  never  pay  men  enough  for  cheapening  prices. 

"When  a  few  successful  and  virtuous  citizens 
have  parcelled  out  the  wealth-making  agencies  of 
this  brief  existence  to  themselves,,  the  glorious  op 
portunities  for  humble  men  to  rise  will  be  greater 
than  ever.  Certain  high  places  will  be  out  of  the 
market,  for  your  good,  restricting  by  so  much  the 
field  of  covetousness  and  the  danger  of  sin.  The 
Maker  uses  consolidations  to  advance  holiness.  As 
you  grow  holier  you  do  not  care  to  be  a  chief  of 
this  world.  It  will  be  stimulus  enough  for  the 
holy  to  work  for  chiefs.  Consider  the  honor  of 
becoming  prime  ministers  of  owners  when  the 
owners  are  as  great  as  we  shall  be !  We  shall  ap 
preciate  you  and  surprise  you  by  the  amount  ef 
your  salaries  when  you  manage  our  commercial 
empires.  Between  serving  us  and  serving  God 
you  will  be  satisfied. 

"What  did  Christ  mean  when  he  told  the  young 
man  to  part  with  all  he  had  to  the  poor?  He  did 
not  mean  literally  go  and  do  it;  that  would  have 
been  unpractical,  and  Jesus  was  before  everything 
practical.  If  he  had  lived  now  he  would  have  been 
a  consolidator.  He  meant  le  willing  to  part  with 
all,  if  you  think  you  ought  to.  Now  I  am  willing, 
but  I  don't  think  I  ought  to.  So  I  am  carrying 
out  the  spirit  and  letter  of  Christ's  injunction." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         147 

Giles  would  then  lead  in  singing,  "Praise  God 
from  whom  all  blessings  flow."  He  was  un 
rivaled  as  a  Sunday  orator,  and  vigorously  relished 
displaying  the  tact  and  luxuriance  of  his  imagina 
tion  to  the  poor  and  leanly  endowed  once  a  week. 

When  his  adversaries  bombarded  his  supremacy 
with  their  Economic  School,  Giles  built  a  great 
free  Technical  Institution  at  Steel  Haven,  sa 
gaciously  prompted  by  his  usual  long-sighted 
theory.  Brains,  cogitated  he,  must  be  occupied 
with  what  they  like.  Busy  them  with  professional, 
technical  things  and  they  will  think  they  are  liv 
ing  to  a  large  purpose;  questions  of  the  distribu 
tion  of  wealth,  society,  equity,  right,  justice,  gov 
ernment,  they  will  despise  as  below  them  and  vul 
gar;  their  souls  will  be  lifted  on  the  bladders  of 
useful  work,  unregardful  that  I  collect  and  use 
for  myself  the  most  of  that  usefulness.  They  do 
not  think  as  far  as  that;  like  bustling  girls  with 
dolls  the  motion  of  their  faculties  satisfies  them; 
solely  to  create  is  bliss,  blind  whether  their  crea 
tions  serve  mankind  or  only  a  few  shrewd  sover 
eigns  of  mankind  like  me  !  The  doctrine  of  honest 
artistic  product,  of  faithful  manly  performance, 
of  working  to  deserve  your  own  approbation,  and 
not  cheating  though  you  are  cheated,  which  Iho 
zealous  have  preached  to  all  the  minion  classes,  is  a 
solid  buttress  of  my  power.  The  large-hearted,  act- 


148        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ive-brained  are  my  vassals  for  the  privilege  of  ex 
hausting  their  brains  for  me,  and  they  fervently 
exhort  the  feebler-brained  crowd  not  to  think  of 
eating,  drinking  or  getting,  for  their  satisfaction, 
but  to  do  a  good  square  job  for  it,  with  the  con 
sciousness  that  an  Esthetic  Providence  will  chisel 
it  to  their  credit  somewhere  in  the  invisible  beau 
ties  of  the  Universe,  some  time  to  be  brought  to 
light  when  the  earth  has  melted  into  the  sun;  or 
warranted  otherwise  to  produce  a  warm  eternal 
glow  in  the  vast  incomprehensibleness  of  essence. 
Let  all  the  rabble  be  cultured  up  to  the  tragic  self- 
.  surrender  of  professors  who  toil  for  the  conserva 
tion  of  antiquity  and  capitalists  for  stablemen's 
pay,  pleased  by  grace  of  the  capitalist  Great  to  be 
given  toil  with  their  brains  rather  than  their 
bodies,  naively  obtuse  to  the  effects  of  their  toil 
on  the  world. 

Giles  was  learning  a  higher  opinion  of  the  edu 
cated.  They  could  give  an  odor  of  sanctity  to  the 
rich  by  their  pens.  The  rich  did  not  especially 
need  it,  but  as  long  as  they  had  everything  they 
might  as  well  have  that.  It  was  like  the  Pope's 
crown  on  Napoleon.  Grown  up  creatures  in  God's 
creation  to  Giles  were  capitalists.  Alone  they  con 
sciously  exercised  the  qualities  of  men,  the  rest 
being  all  slavish,  obedient,  contented  to  serve  like 
fawning  little  dressed  up  monkeys  for  what  the 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        149 

men   of   mankind,  the  human  royalty,   the   self- 
chiseled  rich,  scraped  out  to  them. 

Hence  he  resolved  to  supplement  his  fine  tech 
nical  foundation  in  Steel  Haven  by  doing  what  was 
deserved  for  the  College  of  Bernfield.     It  should 
cease  to  potter  in  poverty  and  rise  into  a  grand 
university   under   his   ample   endowment.      After 
that  every  professor  would  skip  into  the  traces  and  ^ 
pall  Capitalism  along  while  he  cracked  the  whip. 
Another    million    for    enlightenment    occasionally 
would  keep  their  ideas  as  orthodox  and  ancient  as 
a  corpse's.     He  would  settle  five  hundred  scholar 
ships  on  the  institution  exclusively  for  the  sons  of 
mechanics  in  his  mills,  naming  them  Mechanics' 
Fellowship,  each  to  yield  the  holder  four  hundred 
dollars  a  year,  and  keep  him  studying,  studying. 
It  would  generate  a  life  bias  to  study,  and  those 
chosen  hundreds  of  brilliant  common-clay  youths 
would  never  do  anything  but  study  all  their  lives.  w 
They   would    devote    themselves    to    science,    the 
sciences  of  Greek  and  Latin,  the  science  of  an 
tiquity,  the  science  of  the  dead,  the  science  of  high 
mathematics,  a  sphere  lifted  above  usefulness  for 
the  pleasure  ground  of  pure  mathematicians ;  they 
should  roam  among  all  the  secrets  of  the  physical 
sciences— nothing  would  be  safer.    In  his  new  de 
votion   to   learning   Giles   perceived   that   though 
science   had    solemnly    Thought    and    toiled,    the 


150        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

servile-and-sovereign  structure  .  of  society  was 
unaffected  by  it,  the  many  were  still  abased  and 
exhausted  for  the  elect,  the  riches  of  science  drib 
bled  only  thinly  to  the  mass.  Science  he  wel 
comed  as  a  new  Class-preserver. 

Through  these  five  hundred  brilliant  annual 
openings  for  the  spawn  of  Toil,  all  the  workers 
could  feel  elevated  to  the  highest  social  level. 
Toil's  brightest  children  could  step  out  into  an 
upper  class,  which  would  be  an  equivalent  in  its 
eyes  to  raising  the  whole  body.  A  workingman  is 
pleased  to  be  a  member  of  the  upper  class  vicari 
ously.  If  one  in  ten  thousand  workingmen  is 
permitted  to  climb  into  a  higher  rank,  abandoning 
his  own  people  afterward  to  be  their  oppressor, 
all  workingmen  suppose  that  they  have  been  up 
lifted  with  the  deserter  and  mistake  themselves 
for  aristocrats  and  masters. 

It  diverted  Giles  to  dwell  on  this  attribute  of 
Wagery,  as  he  named  it,  and  he  pictured  it  off 
thus:  If  ten  thousand  men  had  nothing  to  eat 
and  the  hoarders  of  the  food  supply  should  beckon 
one  to  them  and  feed  him,  the  rest  of  the  starving 
crew  would  exclaim — We  are  all  fed,  and  now  wo 
belong  to  the  eating  class ! 

Giles  exulted  over  his  fanciful  partners,  the 
workers.  A  few  hundred  paltry  scholarships  would 
solidify  the  social  order  for  twenty  more  genera- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire,         151 

tions.  All  youthful  working-class  energies  would 
hasten  into  absorbing  competition  for  these  small 
preferments,  and  would  no  longer  have  thoughts 
for  social  justice  or  their  rights.  These  privileges 
would  be  to  them  social  reform.  Every  working- 
man  would  consider  himself  educated  by  proxy, 
and  all  would  unite  to  terrify  and  hush  the  social 
infidel  who  might  not  be  able  to  see  it. 

He  would  provide  a  bunch  of  petty  instructor- 
ships  yielding  five,,  six  and  seven  hundred  dollars 
a  year,  and  a  few  generous  ones  of  a  thousand,  to 
which  these  mechanic  scholars  might  gradually 
ascend  as  they  grew  old,  patiently  consecrating 
themselves  to  the  austere  glories  of  information. 
Spare  Living  and  High  Thinking  should  be  the  _,.- 
advertisement  on  their  laboratories,  and  he  would 
see  by  raising  the  price  of  life's  necessaries  that 
the  facts  were,  High  Living  and  Spare  Thinking. 

Of  course  a  department  of  Political  Economy 
was  called  for  to  stamp  fairmindedness  on  the  in 
stitution.  He  decided  to  look  personally  into  that : 
his  practical  success  had  given  him  more  knowledge 
of  economy  than  all  the  procession  of  rusty  an 
tiques  that  had  plodded  before  and  called  them 
selves  thinkers.  It  will  be  seen  that  Giles  was  be 
coming  a  philosopher.  All  rich  men  do  at  a  cer 
tain  age.  The  burden  of  proving  the  perfection  of 
the  world  rests  on  them.  Optimism  is  their  creed. 
They  thirst  to  impart  the  joy  of  feeling  their  sue- 


152         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

cess  to  every  man.  The  yearning  to  give  men  suc 
cess  of  their  own  to  feel  is  pessimism.  Hence 
Giles  ruminated  that  it  might  devolve  on  him  to 
dictate  a  true  book  of  political  economy.  There 
were  bright  nebulaB  of  distinguished  thinkers  in 
that  domain  panting  to  stuff  his  economic  offspring 
at  ten  or  fifteen  dollars  a  week,  supplying  the 
economic  jargon  and  profundity.  He  would  fur 
nish  the  thoughts,,  which  the  learned  could  clothe 
in  clouds  and  confusion.  Quite  the  magician  for 
chief  clerk  was  a  notorious  weaver  of  guesses  who 
had  bravely  re-proclaimed  the  great  law  that  la 
borers  receive  on  the  whole  as  much  as  they  should. 
He  had  written: 

"It  is  the  purpose  of  this  work  to  show  that  the 
distribution  of  the  income  of  society  is  controlled 
by  a  natural  law,  and  that  this  law,  if  it  worked 
without  friction,  would  give  to  every  agent  of  pro 
duction  the  amount  of  wealth  which  that  agent 
creates.  However  wages  may  be  adjusted  by  bar 
gains  freely  made  between  individual  men,  the 
rates  of  pay  that  result  from  such  transactions 
tend,  it  is  here  claimed,  to  equal  that  part  of  the 
product  of  industry  which  is  traceable  to  the  labor 
itself."  * 

A  man  who  could  say  that,  Giles  chuckled,  was 
just  the  beaming  jewel  for  a  great  monopolist's 
amanuensis. 

*  Clark. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         153 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 

OLD  GILES'  arrangement  met  with  remarkable 
success.  Everybody  was  grateful  to  him :  the  rich 
saying  he  had  saved  society  by  closing  the  gap  be 
tween  Capital  and  Labor,  the  poor  declaring  that 
classes  were  now  extinct  and  poor  and  rich  levelly 
equal.  The  poor  were  especially  strong  in  these 
assertions  of  equality  and  bitterly  denounced  who 
ever  denied  it. 

Horace  Gray  and  his  friends  found  skeptics  at 
all  their  meetings.  Sometimes  they  were  assailed 
with,  "Who  pays  you  for  this  work  ?  What  is  there 
in  it  for  you?  What  political  party  hires  you?" 
Men  whose  sole  possession  on  earth  was  an  extra 
shirt  at  a  cheap  and  dirty  boarding  house  trained 
themselves  in  arguments  to  defend  capital.  Their 
reasoning  was  in  a  form  that  particularly  allured 
a  prominent  division  of  the  working  class.  "Cap 
ital/'  they  said,  "creates  half  the  wealth  and  we 
laborers  the  other  half.  If  we  get  our  half  it's 
none  of  our  business  who  has  the  rest.  It  would 


154        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

be  wrong  for  us  to  have  it,  since  we  didn't  make 
it." 

"Who  made  it?"  asked  Gray. 

"Capital  made  it." 

"Capital  isn't  the  capitalist.,  is  it?" 

"No." 

"Then  why  should  any  man  own  what  capital 
produces?  Isn't  that  a  common  product,  belong 
ing  to  all?" 

They  replied  derisively:  "How  could  there  be 
capital  without  a  capitalist?  And  of  course  what 
capital  produces  is  his." 

The  men  viewed  capital  as  an  agency  out  of  their 
sphere,  with  which  they  had  nothing  to  do,  and 
toward  the  right  disposition  of  whose  product  they 
had  no  duties.  The  mental  association  of  capital 
and  capitalist  was  too  thick  for  them  to  break,  in 
their  brains  the  two  were  one. 

Gray,  finding  that  the  working  people  shunned 
halls,  as  if  fearing  to  commit  themselves  even  to 
the  extent  of  entering  and  hearing,  secured  a 
large  vacant  lot  in  the  middle  of  town  for  an  open 
meeting  place,  and  there  with  his  associates  gave 
evening  addresses.  Considerable  crowds  gathered, 
but  when  Old  Giles'  foremen  took  to  going  among 
them  and  peering  about,  the  majority  skulked  off 
shamefacedly.  They  felt  the  anchor  of  their  jobs 
quaking. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         155 

"It's  un-American  rant  you're  preaching"  called 
out  a  gate-keeper  of  Giles',  red  in  the  face  with 
wrath,  who  had  lost  an  arm  and  a  leg  in  one  of  his  " 
mills.  "Every  true  workin'man  ought  to  stand  up 
agin  you.  You  want  to  steal  his  savings  and  take 
away  his  opportunity  to  rise." 

"How  much  have  you  saved?"  asked  Gray. 

"Nothing,"  flustered  the  man,  "but  I  might 
have,  and  I  don't  want  nobody  takin'  away  what  I 
might  have." 

"What  is  Americanism?"  interrogated  Gray. 

"The  right  of  a  man  to  get  everything  he's  got 
the  brains  to  get,"  answered  the  crippled  gateman. 
"That's  opportunity,  and  Americanism  is  oppor 
tunity." 

"If  a  man  has  a  right  to  everything,  he  has  a 
right  to  deny  it  to  other  people  when  he  gets  it, 
hasn't  he,  and  to  keep  it  all  for  himself  ?" 

"Of  course  he  has." 

"Then  when  one  man  has  captured  all  there  is 
in  this  country  he  would  be  justified  in  telling  all 
the  people  to  go  to  Heaven,  would  he  not?  or  to 
China,  or  Africa,  or  the  Moon,  if  they  liked  it 
better.  If  any  stayed  it  would  be  just  for  him  to 
starve  them  all  to  death.  Is  this  so?" 

"Yes,  it's   so,  if  he  wanted  to,"  the  gateman 
stoutly  asserted ;  "a  man  has  a  right  to  do  as  he    -/ 
pleases  with  what  belongs  to  him ;  that's  American- 


156        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ism ;  if  the  rest  of  the  population  don't  like  it  they 
can  move  off,  the  Earth's  free." 

"Death's  free,  you  mean;  that  is  all.  Suppose 
the  same  man  or  syndicate  owns  all  the  Earth  ?" 

"Oh,  well,  that  ain't  happened  yet,"  rejoined 
the  gate-keeper,  twirling  the  hook  that  answered 
for  his  right  arm ;  "an*  most  like  they'd  want  some 
of  us  to  work  for  'em;  there's  always  servin'. 
People  don't  have  to  be  born ;  the  world  is  their'n 
that  got  here  first." 

"Don't  dodge  my  question/'  insisted  Gray.  "A 
few,  yes,  one  man,  according  to  our  laws  and  mor 
als,  if  he  could  obtain  control  of  all  the  property  on 
the  planet — as  some  are  doing — would  have  the 
right  to  order  the  entire  population  to  move  out 
through  the  gates  of  Death,  were  he  so  disposed. 
And  any  one  who  didn't  want  to  go  would  be  an 
anarchist.  Is  that  true  ?" 

"It  certainly  is  true.  It  would  be  a  smart 
world,  indeed,  if  you  checked  the  talents  of  the 
bright  men  just  to  save  the  population." 

Giles  was  very  popular  in  Bernfield  elite  society. 
,/  Since  he  had  reconciled  capital  and  lifted  the 
workingman  to  an  equality  with  everybody  with 
out  altering  previous  relations,  they  had  taken  him 
up.  His  contributions  to  the  college  had  shown 
him  to  be  a  personage  of  innate  refinement.  He 
had  learned  to  wear  a  dress  suit  comfortably  and 


The  Monarch  Billionaire,         157 

give  dinners  to  men  who  talked  about  art  and  :X 
cameos,  always  steeping  them  in  a  profusion  of 
cookery  and  liquid  that  temporarily  blunted  them 
to  the  Muses  and  turned  their  instincts  of  admira 
tion  toward  him.  They  were  people  of  substance 
who  loved  to  eat  and  said  they  loved  Brahms,  and 
followed  the  hounds  and  golf  balls,  and  they  were 
civilizing  the  barbarian  Giles  while  he  was  paying 
for  it.  They  made  him  a  member  of  the  Canary 
Bird  Club,  Bernfield's  most  select  organization, 
and  of  the  Baby  Monks,  and  Eag  Doll  Veterans. 
At  one  of  their  banquets  Giles  delivered  an  epoch- 
making  oration. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "the  great  thought  of  the 
modern  world  is  harmony.     The  universe  is  har-   ij/* 
monious,  why  cannot  the  earth  be?    Let  us  begin 
the   harmony  with  capitalists,   and  extend  it  to   ^n 
labor  by  assimilating  their  unions.    We  have  neg-   ^ 
lected  the  assimilation  of  labor.    Once  opposed  to 
labor  organizations  I  now  respect  them.    They  are 
the  elements  of  harmony,  I  might  say  of  assimi 
lation.    I  have  pondered  how  to  inflame  a  saving 
sense  of  responsibility  in  the  laboring  class ;  I  wish 
to  bring  the  workers  into  the  grand  swell  of  the 
ages  and  the  planets  which  capitalists  already  oc 
cupy.     It  can  be  done  by  centering  our  efforts  on 
their  aristocracy  and  raising  them.     Who  are  the 
Labor  Aristocracy?     The  trade  union  leaders. 


158        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"The  lower  classes  like  the  higher  are  subject 
to  Nature's  beautiful  Law  of  Aristocracy.  In  the 
slums  as  in  the  salons  the  best  come  to  the  top  and 
the  rest  obey  them.  The  union  leaders,  the  slum 
four  hundred,  or  underground  aristocracy,  are 
the  pivot  of  social  harmony.  If  we  harmonize 
them  we  harmonize  all ;  they  are  the  pumping  sta 
tion  of  intelligence  to  the  mass ;  to  them  the  masses 
are  the  satellites  ambulating  around  the  stars. 
These  labor  stars  are  human.  Nay,  even  vulnera 
ble  to  great  ideas  like  harmony.  They  are  open  to 
assimilation.  Picture  them  as  the  sluices  through 
which  we  may  saturate  the  masses  with  respon 
sibility. 

"Our  cue  is  the  establishment  of  a  modus  vivendi 
with  these  leaders.  Social  converse  is  the  sure 
liquidation  of  dislike.  We  must  in  a  sense  take 
them  to  our  bosoms — only  in  a  sense — conferring 
with  them  at  a  periodic  banquet  board,  where  the 
courses  should  be  as  heavy  as  the  conversation  is 
light.  Let  our  condescension  be  well  advertised 
in  the  newspapers,  dwelling  on  the  unifying  em 
braces  of  the  classes;  see  that  unison  pervades 
without  committal,  affection  without  concession. 
The  passage  to  the  union  leader's  citadel  is 
through  respect;  bear  respect  for  him  in  your 
pocket  as  the  skeleton  key  to  his  heart  and  deeds. 
Social  harmony  and  capitalistic  security  bought 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        159 

by  a  monthly  dinner  with  some  of  labor's  four 
hundred  is  dirt  cheap.  This  is  assimilation.  Were 
I  like  you,  skilled  in  words,  I  might  say  that  mas 
tication  promotes  assimilation. 

"There  will  be  no  riff-raff  there,  no  actual 
workingmen,  only  theoretic  workingmen.  I  might 
hesitate  to  recommend  the  meeting  of  gentlemen 
with  men  who  work.  The  labor  leaders,  happily  v 
for  us,  do  not  work.  They  are  like  ourselves, 
thinkers;  therefore  we  and  they  ought  to  under 
stand  each  other  and  put  our  hands  in  the  same 
glove,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  same  pocket — the 
workingman's. 

"Indeed  they  are  excellent  gentlemen,  leading 
a  cultivated  life,  ratified  by  the  blessings  of  leis 
ure  and  financial  competence.  They  receive  from 
two  to  six  times  what  the  laborers  who  hire  them 
do ;  they  are  housed  in  pleasant  offices  and  commo 
dious  hotels ;  they  are  great  travelers  in  their  cause 
and  something  of  speech-makers;  they  are  fa 
mous,  receiving  genial  prominence  from  the  press 
in  gratitude  for  something  popular  to  write 
about;  they  sway  power,  sometimes  immense, 
and  are  not  made  miserable  by  it — in 
which  they  are  like  the  capitalist  commander-in- 
chiefs  of  Trusts;  in  strikes  they  are  the  great 
generals  in  the  field  and  when  they  wink  the 
country  is  informed  which  eye.  So  you  see,  gen- 


160        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

tlemen,  their  place  is  enviable,  and  anything  but 
that  of  the  grimy  toilers  that  fill  the  breach,  and 
diet  in  battle.  Some  have  compared  them  to  the 
generals  who  sit  in  their  phaetons  while  the  dis 
tant  cannon  boom,  directing  the  controversy — 
clean,  safe  and  digestive. 

"It  is  a  good  job,  necessary  to  the  labor  world  as 
capitalists  are  necessary  to  the  whole  world,  only 
they  do  not  belong  in  reality  to  the  labor  class: 
they  are  Labor-Capitalists. 

"For  the  good  of  this  class  the  labor  successes 
must  not  go  too  far.  Should  labor  conquer  too 
well  labor  organizations  would  be  unneeded  and 
the  high  places  occupied  by  leaders  would  depart. 
Conditions  must  be  nursed  and  kept  which  re 
quire  labor  organizations,  for  labor  organizations 
require  leaders.  The  preservation  of  the  leaders 
is  essential  for  the  good  of — the  leaders. 

"The  leaders  seem  from  their  actions  to  know 
this  chain  of  thought  well.  Examine  the  heads  of 
labor  bodies  and  you  will  find  that  most  of  them 
place  a  conservative  limit  on  labor's  rights.  They 
favor  a  continuance  of  the  capitalist  system, 
regarding  it  as  structural  in  nature,  but  would 
have  more  wages,  and  hours  reduced ;  they  adjudge 
to  capital  and  capitalist  essential  rights,  conced 
ing  that  beyond  a  flexible  point  labor  must  not 
push.  This  is  acute  enlightenment,  for  our  cap- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         161 

Italist  purposes — and  harmony.  These  leaders 
seem  to  appreciate  us,  and  assimilation.  We 
should  appreciate  them  and  no  longer  keep  them 
out  in  the  cold  away  from  us,  or  refuse  to  assimi 
late  them.  They  are  real  care-takers  and  guardi 
ans  of  our  business  evolutions,  the  proper  watchers 
to  keep  a  string  on  labor  aspirations  and  punc 
ture  its  grasping  impulses.  They  will  do  so  if  we 
are  kind. 

"We  must  perceive  and  use  their  natural  kin 
ship  with  us.  Half  laborer,  half  capitalist,  they 
are  divinely  put  together  to  sustain  the  status 
quo.  As  semi-partners  of  ours  we  can  shape  the 
policies  and  opinions  of  labor  through  them;  as 
semi-partners  of  labor  labor  will  trust  them  and 
allow  its  policies  to  be  shaped.  If  the  process  is  a 
little  disagreeable  to  you  as  seeming  to  rupture  the 
ligaments  of  caste,  remember  that  recognizing 
labor  leaders  is  security  from  recognizing  the 
laboring  mass.  Allowed  to  move  judiciously  with 
us  they  will  imbibe  our  views,  half  toned  and 
fused  into  labor  terms,  as  rugged  champions  of  the 
people  who  go  to  Congress  lose  their  rawness  and 
inhale  the  sentiments  of  the  old  habitues  and  lob 
byists;  they  will  discover  that  we  are  broad-gauge 
good  men  who  think  everything  of  them,  and  a 
reign  of  love,  confidence  and  harmony  will  set  in. 

"They    will    diffuse    their   new   understanding      j 


1 62         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

through  the  working-class  body — whom  they  are 
supposed  to  represent  but  do  not,  because  only  a 
man  who  actually  works  with  his  hands  as  they 
work  can  truly  stand  for  workers,  and  not  one  who 
sits,  and  negotiates,  and  dines  with  their  masters, 
for  a  salary.  For  it  is  in  this  way  that  the  toilers 
have  always  been  tricked  out  of  their  victories. 
Then  the  cloud  of  toiling  inferiors  will  realize 
our  virtues  and  feel  a  surge  of  gratitude  when  wo 
grasp  their  agents  by  the  hand,  and  will  lovingly 
admit  our  capitalist  claims." 

Giles  sat  down  amidst  applause  long  and  tem 
pestuous.  His  words  opened  a  new  vista  of  cap 
italist  usefulness  and  pointed  the  way  to  the  pres 
ervation  of  the  class  that  so  loved  the  world  that  it 
took  it  all. 

Giles'  conversion  to  trade  unionism  made  him 
famous  throughout  the  country  as  the  leading 
knight  protector  of  labor.  He  was  called  to  advise 
in  labor  disputes  and  to  compose  acute  troubles  be 
tween  employers  and  men.  To  no  one's  surprise 
more  than  his  own  he  found  himself  a  public 
oracle  capable  of  deep  utterances.  Being  re 
quired  to  be  wise  in  so  many  respects  and  infal 
libly  wise  in  them  all,  he  took  to  considering  the 
situation.  He  had  become  a  national  figure  and 
must  live  up  to  it.  One  evening  at  a  great  meet 
ing  in  New  York  he  sketched  the  course  of  indus- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         163 

trial  evolution  being  benignly  unfolded  by  him, 
and  accepted  the  mantle  of  deliverer  and  prophet. 
"Capitalists  are  the  only  true  benefactors  the 
human  species  has  known,"  he  said.  "Martyrs  v 
only  made  trouble,  they  were  turmoilers.  Eiot 
acts  and  riot  guns  were  defective  in  the  time  of 
martyrs  or  there  would  have  been  none  of  them. 
They  considerably  delayed  the  coming  of  capital 
ists  by  giving  currency  to  moral  hallucinations. 
A  man  had  only  to  be  mad  in  those  days  and 
stretch  his  arms  up  toward  the  Almighty  and  they 
called  him  prophet  and  saint,  listened  to  his  ruc 
tion  and  made  trouble  for  business  men.  Now 
business  men  put  him  in  jail  and  that's  the  end 
of  him.  Elijah,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Brutus,  John 
the  Baptist,  a  capitalist  renegade  named  Paul,  and 
about  a  dozen  well-known  ranters  who  followed  an 
arch  noise-maker  who  interfered  with  the  buds 
of  civilization  in  Jerusalem — threw  stones  at 
the  business  class  of  their  day  and  shot  their 
venom  at  capital.  They  were  a  bilious  mob  who 
thought  man  was  somebody,  without  property. 
At  last  every  one  has  learned  the  superiority  of 
business  to,  I  might  say,  the  Almighty.  Jails  and 
police  and  judges  working  hard  for  a  couple  of 
thousand  years  have  taught  men  this.  •  They  are 
the  great  enlighteners ;  men  never  would  have  un- 


164        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

derstood  the  virtues  of  capital  and  learned  to  put 
God  in  his  right  place  without  policemen. 

"Capitalists  are  the  acme  and  shekinah  of  busi- 
ness  men.  By  their  wand  order  emerges  from 
chaos  and  everything  material  and  immaterial  is 
organized.  We  shall  organize  the  spirit-world 
next,  charge  a  supernatural  fee  for  it,  and  take  a 
mortgage  on  the  property  of  Eternity.  Eternity 
mortgages  are  the  best  kind.  We  don't  think  any 
thing  has  a  right  to  exist  now  without  a  mortgage 
on  it  to  us. 

"The  world  was  an  accident  until  we  introduced 
the  Law  of  Brains  ten  years  ago.  Business  was 
Battle,  and  Battle  is  Waste.  The  Law  of  Brains 
said,  organize.  The  world  is  now  organized  on  a 
mortgage,  and  we  have  peace.  The  capitalists 
hold  the  mortgage  and  the  people  pay  interest  on 
it.  For  mankind  the  universe  may  be  said  to  rest 
on  a  mortgage.  The  first  universal  principle  has 
been  called  Love.  I  call  it  a  mortgage. 

"Can  we  mortgage  the  Almighty?  This  is  the 
next  serious  business  question.  We  have  mort 
gaged  all  his  Works,  why  not  mortgage  Him? 
That  would  be  a  rich  stroke  of  civilization  and 
assimilation.  I  am  not  pessimistic,  science  is  giv 
ing  us  a  grasp  on  the  spirit-world,  and  while  you 
may  now  smile  on  the  proposition  as  a  pleasantry, 
I  boldly  ask  if  there  has  not  been  a  mistake  in 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         165 

supposing  that  a  Being  who  could  not  protect  his 
universe  from  a  mortgage  can  protect  himself? 
Have  we  not  been  in  error  about  the  head  cf 
things?  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  strongest  men 
are  the  head  of  the  cosmic  system,  so  far  as  it 
has  a  head  ?  Every  man  who  uses  God's  system  to 
dwell  in  pays  to  capitalists  a  large  fee  for  it.  We 
fine  him  for  living,  eating,  drinking,  sitting,  mov 
ing,  looking  at  the  sky,  breathing  God's  air,  cir 
culating  his  blood.  We  certainly  have  mortgaged 
the  Infinite  Power  already. 

"But  I  digress.  Under  the  divine  rule  of  world- 
organized  capital  the  productive  forces  of  man 
kind  and  nature  will  reach  their  maximum  and 
great  mother  earth  will  become  prodigiously  rich. 
Competitive  battle  is  as  stupid  and  destructive  as 
physical  battle. 

"To  us  as  capitalists  the  door  of  a  new  destiny 
opens,  we  are  opening  it.  We  have  not  yet  con 
ceived  the  magnificence  of  our  office.  Our  sphere 
is  to  furnish  the  ideas,  direction  and  impulse  of 
this  huge  world-combination.  Under  our  im 
petus  there  will  be  a  capitalist  world-empire  en 
circling  the  globe.  Kings  and  presidents  will  be 
our  clerks  and  agents;  all  men  will  become  one 
nation,  the  watchwords  of  mankind  will  be — Pro 
duction  and  Peace.  I  am  told  that  one  of  our 
poets  wrote  "God  said  I  am  tired  of  Kings.'  So 


1 66        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

are  we,  and  of  the  rule  of  all  politicians.  The 
President  of  the  Earth  is  Capital,,  and  we  are  its 
president. 

"But  you  say  I  have  not  touched  on  the  fiercest 
source  of  modern  strife — Labor.  Labor  is  like  a 
wild  beast  because  we  have  treated  it  as  a  beast. 
It  can  be  tamed  and  harnessed  to  the  world's 
good  by  side  of  capital.  Let  Labor  form  a  world- 
union  like  capital.  When  it  is  internationally  or 
ganized  capital  will  learn  its  usefulness  and  justly 
reward  it.  Labor,  on  the  other  hand,  growing 
more  intelligent  through  greater  responsibility 
and  the  increasing  respect  for  it,  will  learn  that  it 
is  not  everything,  will  see  the  necessity  of  capital, 
and  accord  to  its  owners  their  share.  The  two 
sides  will  negotiate  their  differences  in  friendship 
and  co-operate  to  enlarge  the  output  of  wealth. 
Here  we  shall  reach  the  final  stage  of  industrial 
relations,  for  there  is  no  farther  to  go.  We  must 
have  classes,  but  they  must  love  each  other.  I 
hope  I  have  shown  the  way." 

Some  of  the  rich  who  heard  these  utterances 
were  deeply  shocked  and  grieved.  One  who  had 
just  made  a  brilliant  franchise  grab  by  the  con 
siderate  gift  of  "dough"  to  Albany  legislators, 
through  which  he  would  clear  millions,  and  was 
in  a  particularly  religious  condition  of  gratitude 
and  reverence  that  had  blossomed  into  a  fifty 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         167 

thousand  dollar  offering  for  a  chapel  in  the  slums 
to  bear  his  name,  indignantly  declared  that  it  was  V' 
blasphemous  to  say  such  things  and  he  repudi 
ated  them.  It  might  be  true  that  the  rich  were  re 
quired  by  commercial  duty  to  introduce  a  new 
moral  law  above  the  old  and  new  commandments, 
but  this  was  a  very  different  matter  from  railing 
at  divine  things;  his  whole  nature  revolted  at 
speaking  lightly  or  familiarly  of  the  infinite. 
It  was  right  to  do  what  was  necessary  for  the 
growth  of  business,  but  to  say  such  things  as  Giles  v/ 
had  was  to  outrage  the  most  sacred  feelings.  The 
capitalist  was  of  course  in  a  manner  absolute 
ruler  of  all  the  Maker's  works  within  his  reach ;  of 
course  he  charged  toll  of  the  lower  orders  for 
looking  at  the  stars  and  the  sunset  and  for  breath 
ing,  because  he  collected  a  profit-tax  of  them  for 
everything  they  required  for  living,  why  not? 
This  did  not  make  the  capitalist  superior  to  God, 
for  the  capitalist  did  this  service  under  God,  by 
God's  will  and  appointment.  Capitalists,  enlight 
ened  by  a  higher  religious  sense,  could  see  that  the 
Christian  Law  of  Love  must  be  repealed  as  chok 
ing  the  path  of  industrial  evolution,  the  new  relig- 
ious  legislation  might  be  called  the  Law  of  Grab  by  | 
the  irreverent  who  could  not  perceive  the  installa 
tion  of  capitalists  for  a  sacred  work.  Just  here 
was  Giles'  emphatic  sinfulness,  he,  a  capitalist, 


i68        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

said  what  the  irreverent  thought.  The  people 
were  under  the  spell  of  sounds  and  words,  which 
really  was  the  essence  of  good  religion,  because  if 
you  observed  the  proprieties  with  their  sounds  and 
words  you  could  do  anything  commanded  by  the 
infinite  Law  of  Get. 

This  objector  was  pacified  by  a  fellow  capitalist 
whose  religion  was  also  above  dispute,  who  ex 
plained  that  Giles'  purpose  was  probably  educa 
tional,  to  induce  the  crude  word-fearing  public  to 
gradually  think  in  terms  of  the  broadened  re- 
ligious  revelation  which  the  brigadier  generals 
of  industry  were  introducing.  His  allusion  to 
mortgaging  the  spirit-world  was  not  bad  wit  in 
view  of  the  progress  of  capitalists,  but  might  be 
taken  as  a  glint  of  innocent  laughter. 

However,  the  foregoing  speech  and  others  by 
Giles  were  a  sleeping  draught  to  the  public  while 
they  very  deftly  removed  the  fangs  of  Labor.  The 
public  said,  "We  are  standing  in  our  own  light 
when  we  obstruct  the  natural  processes  of  benefi 
cent  capital,  which  now  realizes  its  obligations  and 
exists  for  the  general  good."  Labor  on  its  part, 
feeling  "recognized"  and  structurally  accepted  as  a 
dignified  factor  in  universal  affairs,  a  co-worker 
with  Capital  in  the  large  mission  of  making  the 
world  pay,  began  to  think  more  of  the  great  prin 
ciples  of  civilization  than  of  bread  and  butter. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         169 

"Soldiers  have  to  sacrifice  their  health/'  said 
Giles  to  them,  "workingmen  must  be  grateful  to  be 
allowed  to  sacrifice  theirs  in  the  good  cause  of 
•civilization.  We  can  only  conquer  capitalized 
Europe  for  the  benefit  of  America  with  the  terri 
ble  engine  of  consolidated  Trusts,  therefore  be  pa 
triotic,  workingmen,  and  obey  your  capitalist  lead- 
ers  in  this  work.  You  must  not  ask  high  wages,  for 
that  will  weaken  us  as  competitors  and  interfere 
with  America's  destiny  to  subjugate  and  enlighten 
mankind.  We  shall  civilize  the  non-capitalized 
continents,  Asia  and  Africa,  with  the  same  Trusts, 
and  incidentally  put  their  wealth  in  our  pockets. 
It  will  be  the  highest  order  of  patriotism  on  your 
part,  workingmen,  to  put  your  private  interests  be 
hind  you  and  listen  only  to  our  commands.  We 
have  put  our  private  interests  behind  us.  We 
carry  on  the  Trusts  purely  for  the  nation's  honor." 

Giles  then  said:  "There  will  be  a  species  of 
universal  brotherhood  in  which  the  rest  of  the 
world  will  be  a  species  of  slaves  to  America,  if 
American  workingmen  will  remain  loyally  in  their 
places  and  work  for  what  we  can  afford  to  give 
them,  without  strikes  and  boycotts." 

The  feeling  of  the  working  masses  on  hearing 
this  was  that  of  the  prodigal  welcomed  home. 

At  this  period  Giles  was  favored  with  a  birth 
day.  In  anticipation  of  it  he  had  directed  one  of 


170        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

his  metropolitan  dailies  to  send  out  telegrams  and 
interviewers  to  prominent  men  to  secure  their 
opinions  of  himself  for  publication,  selecting  of 
course  only  those  capable  of  thoroughly  appreciat 
ing  his  genius.  The  Daily  Consolidator  headed  a 
principal  page  with  the  intelligence,,  "Billionaire 
G.  Wyndon  enjoys  an  edifying  birthday.  Con 
gratulatory  wishes  come  to  The  Consolidator  for 
him  from  persons  who  know  him  best.  He  will 
spend  the  day  as  usual  working  the  wires  of  the 
financial  world  for  the  good  of  mankind." 

From  an  Englishman  in  England  came  the  fol 
lowing  : 

"To  us  in  England  Giles  Wyndon  is  a  provi 
dential  man,,  raised  up  to  achieve  in  the  world  of 
commerce  and  finance  what  cannot  yet  be  at 
tempted  in  the  political  sphere.  He  is  knitting 
nations  together;  he  is  weaving  into  a  web  the 
many-colored  strands  of  diverse  national  lives;  in 
the  roaring  loom  of  life  he  uses  Atlantic  liners  as 
shuttles  and  railways  as  threads.  He  is  one  of 
the  master  spirits  of  the  twentieth  century.  A 
man  who  undertakes  and  begins  such  tasks  as 
those  associated  with  the  name  of  Wyndon  ought 
to  be,  if  not  immortal,,  at  least  assured  of  another 
thirty  years  of  life." 

"I  think  I'm  good  for  fifty  more/'  observed 
Giles  on  reading  this,  "and  long  before  that  I  ex- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        171 

pect  to  own  nine-tenths  of  all  the  property  in  the 
world." 

A  member  of  the  Stock  Exchange  replied  to  the 
interviewer:  "I  think  Mr.  Wyndon  is  in  many 
respects  the  grandest  type  of  man  this  country  has 
ever  produced.  His  great  mentality  and  force  of 
character  would  have  made  him  a  leader  in  any 
walk  of  life.  My  estimate  of  the  man  is  that  he 
has  no  equal;  that  he  is  the  greatest  financier  that 
ever  lived;  and  I  consider  him  the  foremost  cit 
izen  of  the  United  States." 

"Good,"  said  Giles.  "I  see  that  others  as  well  as 
myself  consider  me  the  biggest  man  in  the  uni 
verse.  This  is  the  way  history  is  made.  I  must 
have  these  opinions  put  into  a  book  for  the  in 
struction  of  future  ages.  I  lack  only  one  thing 
and  that  is  the  power  not  to  die.  But  beyond  all 
Caesars,,  Saints,  and  Financiers,  what  a  funeral 
I'll  have !" 

A  conspicuous  divine  was  visited  by  the  re 
porter  and  his  lucubrations  were  given  a  typo 
graphical  square  in  The  Consolidator  by  them 
selves.  The  headlines  announced:  "Arthur  Wil 
lie-Willie  calls  Giles  Wyndon  a  Eeal  King.  (In 
terview  with  the  Eev.  Dr.  Willie-Willie,  of  Bagg- 
more  Church.)" 

"Dr.  Willie-Willie  said: 

"Had  Giles  Wyndon,  with  his  executive  ability, 


172         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

his  organizing  instinct,  lived  in  the  old  Eoman 
times,  he  would  have  been  a  Julius  Caesar,  and 
built  up  a  great  military  system,  and  imposed 
Roman  law  and  government  on  savage  peoples. 

"Had  he  lived  a  hundred  years  ago,  I  am  in 
clined  to  think  that  he  would  have  been  a  Na 
poleon,  and  perhaps  there  never  would  have  been 
a  Wellington  or  a  Waterloo. 

"The  measure  of  a  civilization  is  to  be  found  in 
its  strongest  men,  who  are  at  once  the  creation  and 
the  exponents  of  the  age. 

"Mr.  Wyndon  has  endeavored  to  increase 
wealth,  multiply  comforts  and  conveniences,  and 
to  use  his  wealth  for  the  higher  life  of  the  com 
munity. 

"A  man  like  Mr.  Wyndon  is  an  American  in 
stitution.  And  since  every  sound  and  rightly  con 
ducted  business  is  a  philanthropy,  and  does  as 
much  for  the  many  who  work  in  it  as  for  the  one 
r.tcin  who  controls  or  owns  it,  Mr.  Wyndon  is  one 
of  the  greatest  and  most  useful  men  in  the  world. 
Europe  has  certain  men  who  are  kings  by  hered 
itary  right.  But  they  look  like  play-kings  in  com 
parison  with  this  real  king  in  the  realm  of  finance- 
commerce-industry  and  social  progress/' 

A  faithful  private  secretary  of  Giles'  who  was 
present  when  his  great  master  read  this,  trembled 
at  the  expected  outbreak  against  "pulpit  poodles" 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         173 

and  "sycophant  toads"  which  were  the  names  Giles 
had  for  an  army  of  clergymen  who,  he  said, 
licked  his  footprints  in  public  Sundays  and  came 
to  him  Mondays  begging  donations  for  new  things 
for  their  show-houses,  but  Giles  perused  the  adula 
tion  silently  and  reflectively. 

"Why  isn't  Willie-Willie  right  in  the  main 
point  ?"  he  said  to  himself.  "Caesar  and  Napoleon 
destroyed  countless  lives  and  took  away  human 
rights  to  yoke  military  despotisms  on  mankind, 
while  I  at  the  expense  of  countless  lives  and  of  all 
men's  natural  rights  am  fastening  a  world-wide 
industrial  despotism  upon  them.  I  don't  know  of 
any  conqueror  that  ever  lived  who  reduced  the 
whole  world  to  such  absolute  subjection  as  I  am 
doing,  and  with  the  connivance,  consent  and  wor 
ship  of  all  mankind.  Other  empires  were  small 
and  bounded  compared  with  mine,  which  includes 
every  rood  of  the  footstool's  surface.  I  shall 
soon  have  the  earth  so  organized  that  no  savage  in 
the  deepest  jungle  depths  can  strip  the  bones  of 
a  wild  bird  with  his  teeth  without  giving  me  a 
large  percentage  of  its  value;  all  planetary  life 
pays  its  huge  tribute  to  me ;  I  write  my  name  and 
whole  peoples  prosper  or  fall ;  all  men  are  helpless 
painted  jumping-jacks  whose  millions  of  legs  and 
arms  twitch  when  I  say  a  word.  Willie-Willie 
was  right!  I  alone  am  bigger  than  all  the  big 


174        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

men  that  ever  lived  combined,  and  my  despoti&m 
is  a  philanthropy;  no  fool  could  have  said  that; 
Willie- Willie  must  have  brains  somewhere;  and  it- 
is  well  to  have  excellent  and  sanctified  orators  like 
him,  who  control  the  religious  prejudices  of  the 
influential,  saying  things  like  that  about  me  from 
Sunday  to  Sunday." 

Instead  of  storming  derision  at  the  babbling 
preacher  as  his  nervous  attendant  had  anticipated, 
Giles  wrote  a  check  for  $25,000  to  the  Baggmore 
Church,  and  a  personal  one  of  a  thousand  to 
Willie-Willie,  ordering  the  secretary  to  indite  a 
polite  missive  to  the  reverend,  begging  him  to 
use  the  sum  in  travel  for  his  health  that  he  might 
be  strengthened  for  prolonged  usefulness  for  the 
Lord. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        175 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

of  these  new  activities  to  typify  and 
advance  social  union  was  the  Industrial  Dinner 
and  Love  League,  a  collection  of  the  greatest  men 
of  affairs  for  the  purpose  of  monthly  dinners  to 
some  representative  leaders  of  organized  labor. 
Giles  presided  at  the  first  of  these  conclaves  as 
president  of  the  League,  and  on  his  right  sat  the 
head  of  a  great  trade  union  whom  they  had  selected 
to  honor.  The  official  had  purchased  a  dress  suit 
for  the  occasion,  which  rested  eloquently  on  his 
rotund  form.  Withal  he  was  not  the  least  hand 
some  man  present,  and  it  did  him  good  to  have 
Labor  appear  with  grace  and  propriety.  The  time 
will  come  when  every  laboring  man  will  have  a 
dress  suit,  he  prophesied.  His  imagination  had 
never  pictured  such  things  as  were  there  to  eat. 

"We  must  give  him  a  warm  dose  of  it,"  whis 
pered  the  heavy  capitalist  on  the  left  in  Giles' 
ear.  The  billionaires  cried  his  name  vociferously 
when  he  arose  and  clapped  their  hands,  beaming 


176        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

at  him.  As  he  stood  up  blushing  gratefully,  some 
musicians  from  an  invisible  station  in  the  ornate 
hall  sang  the  new  popular  success,  "Class  Union/' 
beginning  "Together  stand  the  classes  for  the  good 
of  all  Mankind."  Then  the  labor  leader  spoke. 

"I  am  deeply  grateful  to  you,  the  most  repre 
sentative  men  of  the  city  and  nation,  for  the  hearty 
welcome  you  have  extended  to  me.  Few  labor 
men  have  ever  been  accorded  such  honor.  I  do 
not  know  but  the  distinction  conferred  upon  me 
is  greater  than  was  ever  enjoyed  by  a  labor  leader. 
I  shall  endeavor  to  deserve  it  in  the  future  as  I 
have  in  the  past.  I  will  not  deny  that  it  is  a 
gratification  thus  to  be  singled  out  as  the  most  im 
portant  of  those  who  follow  my  calling  of  labor 
organizer  in  the  land.  Because  of  your  invitation 
to  eat  and  speak  at  this  meeting  my  picture  has 
been  published  in  nearly  every  paper  in  the  nation, 
but  I  believe  I  may  honestly  say  that  my  head 
has  not  been  turned  by  that.  The  service  I  have 
rendered  my  class  in  being  deemed  worthy  to 
come  here  in  this  capacity  is  the  thought  that  sus 
tains  me. 

"But  I  have  said  enough  about  myself;  it  is 
my  opinions  on  the  large  questions  of  the  day  and 
nation  that  you  and  the  public  desire  to  hear. 
The  great  cause  of  labor  is  with  you  in  my  person, 
eating,  drinking  and  exchanging  ideas  with  you. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         177 

(Applause.)  The  humble  workingman  to-night 
acquires  a  new  dignity  because  his  official  self, 
his  elected  spokesman  and  public  personality,  the 
president  of  his  craft  organization,  receives  the 
hand  of  class  affection  from  a  body  of  the  greatest 
living  Americans.  (Deafening  approval,  with 
clapping  hands  and  vocally.) 

"I,  for  one,  do  not  regard  the  interests  of 
capital  and  labor  as  so  much  opposed  to  each  other 
that  they  cannot  be  reconciled.  I  have  abiding 
faith  in  the  citizens  of  this  country,  and  believe 
that  they  can  solve  the  great  labor  problem  which 
confronts  us,  and  solve  it  right.  The  labor  prin 
ciples  are  considered  more  lofty  now  by  that  class 
of  the  people  who  heretofore  did  not  understand 
the  purposes  of  trade  unions.  Capital  has  its 
just  rights  which  it  would  be  criminal  for  labor 
to  disturb.  It  earns  a  part  of  the  social  income 
as  verily  and  toilsomely  as  labor  does — for  the  toil 
of  machinery  is  toil — and  that  part  morally  and 
of  right  must  go  to  the  owners  of  capital.  I  am 
no  iconoclast,  I  am  no  revolutionary,  I  am  no 
dreamer,  I  am  not  leading  my  trusting  followers 
into  chimerical  quicksands  or  utopian  bog.  I  am 
a  patriot,  proud  of  our  national  wealth  and  of  you, 
the  distinguished  breeders  of  it.  If  I  instructed 
my  people  that  they  deserve  your  share  of  the 
fruits  of  your  strenuous  life — for,  friends,  I  con- 


178        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

sider  mental  effort  to  be  not  less  toil  than  muscular 
exertion  (terrific  applause),  I  should  be  un 
worthy  of  the  confidence  registered  in  me  by 
my  union  and  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

"No  workingman  should  receive  less  than  six 
hundred  dollars  a  year  for  his  wage.  He  cannot 
be  a  good  citizen  and  bring  up  as  many  future 
workingmen  as  he  should  on  less  than  that.  I 
place  no  limit  to  the  deserved  fortunes  of  capi 
talists.  It  is  not  my  province  to  say  how  many 
millions  or  billions  are  required  by  a  capitalist 
to  bring  up  his  family  as  good  citizens.  Generally, 
a  great  many  millions  fail,  which  I  take  as  an 
evidence  that  he  deserves  more.  I  will  say  that 
to  curtail  his  freedom  to  earn  all  he  can,  whether 
millions  or  billions,  would  be  un-American,  would 
destroy  the  zest  of  life  of  all  the  common  laborers 
now  hopefully  climbing  the  ladder  of  wealth  on 
three  hundred  dollars  a  year. 

"I  thank  you  again  for  your  considerate  con 
descension  toward  me.  Capitalists  and  laborers 
are  brothers,  and  since  I  have  come  to  know  the 
full  meaning  of  your  brotherly  bearing  this  even 
ing,  I  can  only  say  that  brotherhood  and  equality 
demand  nothing  else  for  realization  than  for  all 
laborers  to  become  as  well  acquainted  with  you 
as  I  am.  I  shall  try  to  live  up  to  the  measure 
that  has  been  set  for  me  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         179 


CHAPTER  XV. 

GILES  illustrated  his  theories  of  a  world  fra 
ternity  of  capitalists  by  effecting  one  stupendous 
purchase  of  interests  after  another  into  The 
Amalgamated  Fish,  Ship,  Iron,  Transportation, 
Coal  and  Steel  Company.  With  every  absorption 
of  this  kind  an  immense  quantity  of  new  stock 
was  issued  by  Giles  to  himself,  to  represent  the 
new  value  that  the  purchased  works  had  acquired 
by  coming  into  the  possession  of  Giles.  Charges 
were  placed  upon  the  consuming  public  to  pay 
dividends  to  Giles  on  this  new  stock,  which  stood 
for  the  value  of  consolidation.  These  dividends 
represented  the  new  wealth  conferred  by  Giles 
upon  the  public  by  having  its  business  done  organ 
ically  and  labor-savingly  in  his  colossal  leviathan. 
The  public  could  not  have  consolidation  without 
paying  for  it.  He  deserved  the  pay  that  had 
formerly  passed  to  labor,  which  was  now  emanci 
pated  from  labor  and  deserved  nothing;  and  with 
it  he  was  able  to  purchase  still  other  bunches  of 


180        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

great  industries  and  receive  more  pay  for  their 
consolidation.  Whatever  he  saved  to  society  was 
appropriately  his  as  the  saver.  Whatever  work  he 
saved  the  displaced  laborers  from  doing  he  com- 
pelled  the  public  to  pay  him  for  not  doing.  Had 
he  been  voted  a  statue  by  the  grateful  people  the 
words  Popular  Economizer  on  it  would  have  satis 
fied  him. 

The  laboring  men,  relieved  of  the  hardship  of 
work,  were  pensioned  by  Giles  at  the  usual  thirty 
cents  a  day,  upon  a  beneficent  scheme  projected 
by  him  to  protect  society  from  revolution  during 
a  transitional  dying  era — until  the  population 
should  be  reasonably  reduced  by  natural  causes. 
Famines,  wars  and  pestilence  being  out  of  mode, 
there  survived  the  natural  diseases  of  anemia. 
Thirty  cents  a  day  would  not  permit  an  ex-labor 
ing  man  the  recklessness  of  a  family  that  would 
grow  to  a  great  age  in  a  cold  climate;  in  fact,  he 
would  probably  die  childless,  leaving  the  inhabi 
tants  less  by  himself,  and  as  many  children  as 
he  might  have  had  with  a  normally  fed  constitu 
tion.  Other  laborers,  informed  by  the  army  of 
unemployed  pensioners  that  children  were  a  drug 
on  the  world,  would  wisely  not  indulge  in  a  quiver 
of  them.  This  plan  of  easy  extermination  would 
be  a  pleasure  to  the  needless  exterminated  them 
selves.  Giles  figured  that  strenuous  employment 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         181 

on  small  pay  was  just  equivalent  in  sum  of  com 
fort  to  no  labor  and  thirty  cents  a  day.  Entire 
redemption  from  work  was  surely  worth  a  dollar 
or  a  dollar  twenty  cents  a  day  to  any  one;  in 
freeing  him  from  work  and  adding  thirty  cents 
to  his  freedom,  Giles  reckoned  that  he  was  paying 
the  fellow  a  dollar  and  a  half  daily.  He  only 
asked  of  these  pensioners  to  abstain  from  protract 
ing  the  burden  of  their  charge  upon  him  beyond 
their  own  generation.  If  they  married,  whether 
men  or  women,  the  pension  expired.  Economic 
professors  in  the  universities  studied  Giles'  popu 
lation  project  with  great  exultation,  and  taught  it 
to  their  classes.  They  named  it  the  Giles  Wyndon  v 
Law  of  Eeconstructed  Population. 

Giles  himself  showed  signs  of  change.  He  was 
taking  himself  gravely.  A  man  who  could  do 
what  he  was  doing  ought  to  have  respect  for  the 
man  that  was  doing  it.  He  rose  steadily  in 
his  self-esteem.  His  name  was  familiar  from  *" 
poles  to  equator  in  every  zone  as  the  world's  portent 
of  finance  and  production.  The  wealth  he  daily 
created  was  fabulous.  One  day  when  housed  with 
a  cold  he  shut  the  door  on  business  and  read  a 
book,  and  at  night  figured  how  many  millions  he 
had  produced  that  day.  They  astonished  him 
when  he  considered  that  he  had  produced  them 
by  reading  a  novel.  His  industrial  power 


1 82        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

stretched  so  rapidly  that  hourly  more  and  more 
of  the  world,  civilized  and  uncivilized,,  rested  on 
him.  As  the  centre  of  earthly  commercial  gravity 
he  saw  his  duty  to  remodel  his  conception  of  him 
self. 

Every  step  in  this  progress  was  keenly  realized 
hy  Margaret.  Something  that  was  best  in  her 
father  was  being  lost.  Before  long  his  old  self, 
the  one  she  loved,  would  fade  into  an  alien 
nature,  and  she,  the  nearest  and  dearest  to  him, 
was  silent  to  this  change.  Her  inaction  seemed 
a  falseness  to  them  both. 

The  course  she  took  might  not  have  reached  a 
focus  immediately  if  Giles'  fertile  brain  had  not 
started  another  movement  for  industrial  good  will. 
Among  the  later  industries  gathered  to  the  bosom 
of  The  Amalgamated  were  the  factories  in  a  batch 
of  old  towns  long  specialized  to  the  working  of 
leather.  The  trade  union  was  solidly  planted  in 
this  field  and  strikes  had  been  frequent;  there 
was  also  the  party  of  operatives  called  Independ 
ents,  opposed  to  working-class  union  and  helping 
their  employers  in  every  struggle.  Their  reward 
was  the  cream  of  work.  It  struck  Giles  to  organize 
them  into  the  Free  Workmen's  Union.  Not  wish- 
.  ing  his  agency  known,  he  suborned  a  clergyman  to 
become  the  organizer  and  public  sponsor  of  the 
movement. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         183 

Giles  covertly  planted  a  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars  in  the  treasury  of  this  body  as  endowment  for  y 
fighting  the  bona  fide  union.  It  was  an  organiza 
tion  of  strike  breakers.  They  were  to  contrive  the 
defeat  of  every  effort  of  the  true  workers  to  im 
prove  their  condition  or  raise  their  caste.  Be 
sides  pecuniary  perquisites,  they  were  rewarded 
by  ranking  as  special  friends  of  the  employer. 
When  they  worked  in  a  strike  their  pay  was  in 
creased  one-third  while  it  lasted. 

In  season  and  out,  in  .strike  and  out  of  strike, 
they  talked  about  the  right  of  workingmen  to  be 
independent  and  labor  when  they  pleased.  Their 
eagerness  to  work  while  the  majority  refused  set 
tled  it  with  the  public  that  the  strikers'  demands 
were  vicious,  and  relieved  the  public  from  squan 
dering  sympathy.  Giles  found  that  he  could  hire 
men  in  plenty  to  stand  up  for  the  doctrine  of  the 
right  to  work  when  you  want  to,  who  never  wanted 
to  except  in  a  strike,  and  would  not  at  any  other 
time.  As  strike  breakers,  they  were  not  required 
to  work  hard,  and  the  pay  was  rich ;  it  was  mainly 
a  matter  of  defying  the  orders  of  the  unions  for 
workers  to  quit,  and  of  making  the  weak-kneed 
workmen  and  weaker  principled  public  believe  that 
the  works  were  proceeding  well  manned.  The 
corps  of  permanently  unemplo}red  rendered  an 
Independent,  or  strike  breakers',  union  feasible 


184        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

for  every  industry.  Practically,  it  achieved  a  sys 
tem  of  antagonistic  or  twin  unions,  potent  for 
making  the  trade  union  and  all  working-class 
struggles  innocuous.  The  split  class  by  this  means 
would  conduct  its  own  suicide,  part  playing  police 
and  gun  on  the  majority. 

The  success  of  the  strike  breakers'  association 
caused  Giles  to  draw  up  articles  of  incorporation 
to  attract  the  large  element  of  good  souled,  but 
simple-brained,  mechanics  and  common  laborers, 
who  believe  they  were  appointed  to  serve  in  the 
world  by  an  act  of  special  grace — who  feel  a  pride 
in  their  menialness  as  if  it  were  a  high  place.  The 
articles  were  worded  as  only  Giles  and  his  lawyers, 
with  here  and  there  a  thought  offered  by  the 
clergyman,  could  do  such  things.  The  document 
was  as  innocent  on  the  outside  as  those  who  could 
believe  in  it  were  on  the  inside.  This  was  its 
wording : 

"This  association  shall  encourage  industry, 
economy,  thrift  and  honesty  among  its  members; 
maintain  amicable  relations  between  employes  and 
employers  of  labor ;  to  assist  its  members  in  obtain 
ing  the  highest  wages  consistent  with  the  general 
good  of  all  concerned ;  to  promote  all  forms  of  pro 
ductive  industry  and  increase  the  employment  of 
labor  at  good  wages;  to  prevent  unjust  and  un 
reasonable  discrimination  against  any  of  its  mem- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         185 

bers  by  any  person,  combination,,  or  conspiracy  to 
prevent  such  members  from  securing  employment 
in  any  branch  of  industry,  and  to  protect  and 
defend  its  members  against  any  and  all  attempts 
by  any  person  or  combination  of  persons  to  abridge 
the  inalienable  right  of  all  mankind  to  work  for 
such  wages  as  shall  be  mutually  satisfactory  to 
the  individual  workman  and  his  employer." 

The  wealthy  press  was  hugely  pleased  by  this 
manifesto,  and  gave  the  "laborers"  who  had  pro 
duced  it  many  editorial  caresses;  Giles  owned 
several  of  these  papers,  which  were  better  able 
than  others  to  uncover  the  genuine  Americanism 
of  the  movement.  "It  would  be  difficult  for  any 
sane  man,  whether  employer,  wage  earner,  or  of 
whatever  occupation  or  social  condition,  to  find 
in  this  declaration  anything  with  which  to  quar 
rel/'  said  one  of  these.  "It  is  not  at  all  surpris 
ing  that  the  aggressiveness,  intolerance  and  vio 
lence  of  some  of  the  unions  have  invited  revolt 
through  opposing  organizations." 

One  of  the  editors  went  a  little  too  far  in  his 
zeal  and  exposed  rather  more  than  Giles  intended, 
saying: 

"The  success  of  any  movement  on  the  part  of 
labor  to  emancipate  itself  from  the  control  of  the 
unions  will  depend,  in  great  degree,  if  not  wholly, 
upon  the  intelligence  with  which  employers  act  in 


1 86        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

conjunction  with  it.  They  do  not  need  to  encour 
age  it  ostentatiously,  much  less  to  patronize  it;  hut 
every  consideration  of  self-interest  suggests  that 
they  should  see  to  it  that  no  man  suffers  from  the 
assertion  of  his  independence  or  from  his  readi 
ness  to  he  rated  according  to  his  worth." 

But  this  editor  was  reprimanded  for  his  in 
discretion,  and  discharged  hy  Giles'  general  press 
manager.  "It  won't  do  to  publicly  advise  em 
ployers  to  bring  up  this  capitalist  infant,  even 
unostentatiously,"  he  caustically  said  to  him;  "we 
thought  your  college  education  would  have  taught 
you  that."  And  this  editor-in-chief  went  out  to 
look  for  another  job  without  a  recommendation 
from  his  last  place. 

However,  the  public  had  no  suspicion  that 
Giles  was  back  of  these  developments,  and,  of 
course,  the  innocent  mechanics  who  flocked  to  the 
"independent"  standard  flouted  the  insinuation 
that  anybody  could  make  them  his  tools.  They 
were  too  bright  for  such  trickery. 

The  dishonor  of  all  this  bit  into  Margaret's 
soul.  Fair  and  foul  means  were  used  undiscrim- 
inatingly  against  the  workers ;  anything  to  deceive, 
anything  to  defeat,  anything  to  weld  new  chains 
on  them.  The  working  masses  were  simply  a 
mine  of  raw  life  for  the  strong  to  dig  into  for 
gold,  as  if  they  were  unfeeling  matter  with  no 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         187 

rights.  She  saw  the  strong  throw  aside  their  moral 
laws  in  using  this  primitive  aggregation  of  life 
stuff,  just  as  if  there  were  no  morality.  For  the 
strong  there  was  none.  When  statements  were 
necessary  to  soothe  or  mold  public  opinion  Giles 
would  compose  an  assemblage  of  lies  to  suit  the 
demand  and  give  them  out  over  his  signature  as 
facts.  At  a  judicial  hearing,  to  which  he  was 
called  for  testimony  on  a  scandalous  deal  of  The 
Amalgamated,  first  destroying  written  evidence 
that  would  incriminate  him,  he  presented  under 
oath  a  tissue  of  testimony,  brilliant  in  its  logical 
freedom  from  truth,  lasting  half  a  day,  and  was 
assisted  over  the  rocky  passages  by  the  Judge  and 
District  Attorney,  who  knew  that  he  was  enter 
taining  the  court  and  country  with  fiction. 

Laughing  over  this  to  Margaret  he  said  that 
the  building  of  a  great  business  was  like  build 
ing  a  state.  All  was  fair  in  diplomacy.  We 
concede  that  lying  is  a  virtue  in  statesmanship 
and  war,  and  business  on  a  large  scale  is  in  their 
category.  The  great  business  man,  like  Bismarck, 
must  lie  and  bribe. 

With  a  bitter  awakening  Margaret  came  to  a 
new  comprehension  of  her  position  in  the  world; 
breaking  its  few  cherished  traditions  her  mind 
went  forth  into  the  territory  of  the  soul's  sov- 


i88         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

ereign  independence.  Uncertain  thoughts  grew 
clear. 

"The  life  for  wealth,  at  all  times  coarsening 
and  mean,  is  searing  the  beauty  and  fineness  of 
my  father's  spirit;  it  stunts  the  generous  and 
noble  if  they  remain  in  it,  driving  them  to  cruelty 
and  selfishness.  But  I  too  am  a  factor  in  this 
life,  yielding  to  it,  not  contending  against  it. 
Why  am  I  submitting,  supporting  what  I  hate  ?  I 
am  obeying  my  father.  My  own  nature  ceases  its 
life  through  this  obedience,  my  real  self  sinks 
to  nothing. 

"Then  why  obey?  Because  of  love  and  the 
teaching  that  obedience  is  right?  They  call  it 
duty  and  right  even  when  it  destroys  the  obeying 
soul,  which  cannot  be.  Is  it  good  for  my  father 
to  blot  my  nature  out,  absorb  what  it  strains  up 
ward  to  be,  forbid  my  independent  existence? 
He  lives  and  stamps  the  world  with  his  character, 
while  love  must  prevent  me  from  impressing 
mine;  yet  his  love  of  me  does  not  restrain  him 
from  extinguishing  me.  Is  this  not  uneven  and 
wrong?  Do  I  not  owe  society  my  life,  my  ideas 
and  ideals?  Do  I  owe  my  father's  love  more 
than  I  owe  myself,  mankind,  principle,  intelli 
gence,  duty?  Is  all  that  we  call  duty  made  in 
favor  of  the  parent,  while  in  parallel  respects  he 
has  none  to  the  child  ? 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         189 

"Perhaps  they  will  tell  me  that  my  turn  will 
come  after  his  death,  and  that  I  am  to  accept  what 
is  left  of  me  then  as  all  that  is  properly  my  own; 
that  only  the  wornout  end  of  life  belongs  to  me 
and  my  aspirations  and  my  fellows.  My  years 
of  energy  may  then  be  gone,,  if  I  do  not  chance 
to  die  first.  Filial  love  and  duty  when  supreme 
are  but  means  for  defrauding  the  world  of  the 
help  of  those  who  would  help  it  most. 

"And  here  is  a  cause  of  the  world's  snail-like 
progress.  The  younger  generation  ever  submits 
to  the  older  until  it  too  is  old,  then  having  grown 
likewise  selfish  or  hopeless,  it  brings  no  change. 
Why  not  reverse  the  order?  Why  shall  not  the 
older  yield  to  the  sentiments  of  their  children 
while  they  are  fresh,  discerning,  unselfish,  and 
pure?  Does  the  generation  happening  to  be  first 
here  own  the  earth  and  all  destiny  until  it  sinks 
in  decrepitude  and  dies?  It  is  a  fact  of  life  that 
as  the  world's  business-bearers  age  a  self-loving 
shell  hardens  on  them ;  love,  generosity,  aspiration, 
if  they  had  them,  vaporize ;  fine  emotions  starve ; 
avarice,  ambition,  greed,  replace  their  humanity; 
they  warm  with  loftier  life  no  more;  the  springs 
of  principle  and  magnanimity  are  dry. 

"And  yet  to  their  sons  and  daughters  these  soul- 
frozen  veterans  of  gain  drone,  'Your  duty,  chil 
dren,  is  love  and  obedience  to  us;  trust  in  our 


1 90        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

stainless,  wisdom,  to  us  the  molding  and  manage 
ment  of  mankind/— though  they  long  ago  drove 
their  wisdom  out  of  doors  and  are  the  sport  of 
vulgar  vanity  and  the  very  agony  of  greed.  Be 
hold  mankind,  the  product  of  their  rich  wisdom ! 
the  factories,  their  factories,  where  cthe  life  of 
the  woman  who  toils  is  miserably  hard;  it  takes 
the  roses  from  fresh  cheeks,  makes  old  and  bent 
women  of  young  girls,  hollows  chests  and  rounds 
straight  young  backs  I'  Without  abhorrence,  how 
can  we  view  the  frenzy  for  gain  which  tortures 
and  defiles  the  creatures  of  their  own  breed  for 
the  work  and  wealth  they  can  burn  from  the 
crucible  of  their  sentient  bodies?  And  we  must 
hold  our  peace  and  even  be  assistants  of  their 
frenzy,  in  the  hallowed  name  of  love.  What  is 
the  vital  quality  of  a  love  for  us  which  does  this 
to  others  ?  Are  we  purchased  to  silence  by  know 
ing  they  will  leave  us  the  blood-stained  property 
for  which  they  strangled  humanity?" 

Margaret  disclosed  her  purpose  to  Philip.  "I  am 
going  out  of  the  Firm ;  it  prevents  me  from  living 
my  true  life  and  I  must  be  free.  I  have  learned 
that  family  affection  is  the  great  impediment  to 
human  change.  It  prevents  me  from  living  by  a 
larger  love  and  following  the  light  of  intelligence. 
All  the  good  of  mankind,  all  the  progress  of  the 
earth,  must  stand  still,  because  parents  believe 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         191 

that  progress  would  distress  them;  the  happiness 
of  all  future  millions  weighs  nothing  against  the 
prejudices  of  these  embattled  parents.  And  we 
who  care  for  the  larger  life  of  the  race  and  desire 
•future  parents  to  have  a  more  beautiful  and  less 
prejudice-trammeled  existence,  we  who  yearn  to 
bring  some  of  the  beauty  of  imagination  into  our 
own  days,  are  bidden  to  forego  all  in  the  holy 
name  of  our  parents'  private  selfishness,  which  they 
call  affection.  I  have  discovered  that  I  shall  love 
my  parent  best  by  being  true  to  every  high, 
thought  that  I  have.  My  love  will  die  if  I  am 
not  myself.  Even  if  it  separates  us  and  breaks 
the  seeming  of  our  happiness,  I  shall  be  giving 
him  a  love  that  has  my  soul  and  essence  in  it, 
love  transcendently  higher  than  the  pale  product 
of  habitual  family  mechanics.  I  should  be  false 
to  love  if  I  did  otherwise — I  am  obeying  love." 

Philip  remained  in  the  Firm  to  be  a  link  be 
tween  these  two. 

Giles  grimly  said:  "This  is  my  reward  for  liv 
ing  for  mankind.  Those  nearest  to  me  cannot 
understand.  I  am  enriching  every  one  and  am 
called  a  cruel  robber." 


192        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTEE  XVI. 

MARGARET  now  declared  herself  to  the  working 
people.  She  was  well  known  to  them  as  the  bril 
liant  daughter  of  Old  Giles,  with  a  commercial 
genius  level  to  his.  Her  renunciation  of  the  stu 
pendous  fortune  stopped  their  breath  and  stupe 
fied  them.  There  must  be  great  reason  for  such 
a  sacrifice  and  they  burned  to  know  it.  Wherever 
she  spoke  the  halls  were  packed  to  the  doors.  The 
freshness  of  her  strong  vitality  and  the  perfect 
harmony  of  all  her  faculties  lent  an  uncommon 
lustre  to  her  beauty. 

What  she  said,,  who  had  renounced  so  much,  the 
people  believed. 

She  told  them  how  they  owed  it  to  themselves 
and  the  great  universe  in  which  they  lived  to  take 
the  world  in  hand  and  change  it.  The  human  race 
was  not  a  feeble  accident  in  the  scheme  of  things. 
It  was  endowed  with  the  power  of  self-creation. 
What  it  wanted  to  be  it  could  be.  It  could  take 
itself  in  its  own  hands  an;"1  shape  its  character;  it 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         193 

could  increase  or  diminish  its  own  intelligence  and 
strength.  All  the  barriers  that  were  placed  about 
it  were  barriers  only  in  fancy;  if  it  believed  in 
their  solidity  and  impassableness  they  were  so> 
whereas  if  it  believed  that  they  only  stood  through 
the  inertia  of  the  human  mind  they  would  scat 
ter  before  the  potency  of  intelligent  will.  The 
world,  mankind,  and  all  relations  of  life  were 
plastic  substance  for  the  energy  of  human  beings 
to  work  upon  into  forms  of  high  and  magical 
beauty.  Nothing  that  exists  was  sacred,  what  was 
sacred  is  the  great  Human  Possibility  alone.  All 
forms,  customs,  beliefs,  practices,  institutions,  rev 
erences,  theories,  were  only  initial  stuff  to  be 
wrought  into  something  measurelessly  higher, 
and  then  rewrought  into  that  which  is  again 
higher.  There  never  would  be  anything  sacred 
but  Possibility.  Man's  destiny  and  happiness 
were  not  in  the  achieved  but  in  the  infinite  un 
achieved,  yet  achievable ;  and  then  not  in  rest  and 
the  sense  of  finishment ;  but  in  the  invasion  of  still 
new  fields  of  perfection  brought  in  sight  of  those 
latest  gained. 

Human  nature  could  change  itself.  That  was 
the  difference  between  human  nature  and  other 
things.  The  world  was  a  wonderful  series  of  po 
tencies  for  changing  human  nature  into  more  life- 
filled,  noble  forms.  Being  fettered  to  old  tales  of 


194        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

philosophy  and  timorous  prejudices  of  religion 
and  society,  humanity  had  not  had  courage  to 
dream  what  it  could  do  with  itself.  It  could  make 
itself  a  majestical  orchestra  of  happiness  on  which 
the  days  should  play  divine  music  forever.  It 
could  nurture  that  divine  thing  love,  yet  only  in 
germ  in  the  world,  but  bearing  exhaustless  infini 
ties  of  happiness  to  be  realized  by  man. 

And  what  restrains  mankind  from  entering  into 
life  ?  A  few  moss-covered  mistakes,,  the  shells  and 
husks  of  its  pre-mental  morning,  treasured  and 
worshiped  not  because  they  are  good  but  because 
of  tender  recollections  of  our  human  babyhood. 
We  love  our  little  ancient  clothes  and  yearn  to 
wear  them  always.  How  could  children  know 
what  would  be  good  for  men?  How  could  they, 
innocent  in  their  first  dazzled  birth,  possess  ideas 
for  guiding  the  life  of  grown  humanity  and  com 
plex  society  ?  The  shard  of  property  is  one  of  man 
kind's  treasured  mistakes.  Property  is  like  food 
taken  into  the  system,  whose  aim  is  the  perfect 
nourishment  of  every  part  to  form  a  healthy,  bal 
anced  and  magnificent  whole.  If  some  parts 
should  unscrupulously  seize  more  nourishment 
than  they  need,  over  surfeiting  and  bloating  them 
selves  while  robbing  other  members  of  the  food 
and  strength  they  require,  would  it  not  be  mad 
ness  for  the  members  diseased  with  excess 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         195 

as  well  as  for  those  defrauded  of  enough? 
Would  not  the  whole  body  be  weak,  pained  and 
sick?  Everybody  can  see  that  nature  in  health 
takes  care  that  this  does  not  happen ;  only  the  sick 
system  allows  it — and  the  punishment  is  death. 
The  well  body  distributes  the  elements  of  life 
where  they  are  needed,  creating  a  beautiful,  ener 
getic  whole  because  every  molecule  composing  it 
rceives  its  full  portion  of  the  body's  nourishing 
wealth. 

But  man  has  not  learned  of  nature.  Though 
wealth  is  to  the  human  family  as  food  to  the 
family  of  bodily  members  and  should  be  circu 
lated  impartially  among  all  individuals  to  gain 
the  greatest  total  health  and  strength;  though 
the  end  to  seek  is  the  largest  vigor  and  energy  of 
every  unit,  which  will  follow  when  all  are  ade 
quately  and  none  over-nourished  with  wealth;  our 
use  of  property  defies  these  laws  and  permits  some 
to  acquire  self-^gorging  suicidal  excess,  with  scanti 
ness  and  atrophy  of  others,  which  is  a  species  of 
deadly  dementia,  with  nothing  like  it  in  lower  na 
ture  or  anywhere  else  but  in  that  lofty  apex  of 
infinity,  man. 

Margaret  told  them  to  study  how  property  had 
been  gained  and  property  rights  established.  The 
foundations  of  it  had  never  been  earning,  its 
largest  holders  had  never  been  earners;  they  had 


196        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

acquired  their  substance  by  force  or  cunning  and 
retained  it  by  the  same,  till  they  had  drilled  sub 
mission  into  the  weaker  and  grooved  them  to  con 
sider  this  wealth  the  property  of  the  strong  by  a 
holy  right,  throughout  time.  They  had  sculptured 
a  habit  of  thought  for  mankind,  which  was  the 
only  basis  of  property.  Not  right,  not  desert, 
not  general  or  individual  good — just  naked  habit. 
Now  that  man  and  society  have  grown  reflective 
all  this  must  change.  The  habit  founded  by  un 
bridled  self-assertion  of  might  must  be  put  off 
and  the  world's  property  managed  with  a  twof  ' 
intention:  that  every  man  may  be  happy  to  the 
measure  of  his  capacity,  that  he  may  live  and  labor 
to  the  largest  effectiveness.  Men  are  happy  and 
the  best  comes  from  them  only  when  they  are  free 
and  equal.  The  best  never  develops  in  slaves,  serv 
ants,  or  the  hired.  Free,  self-dependent  effort  is 
the  law  of  human  happiness  and  productivity. 
Equality  before  the  law  has  been  gained  (in  prin 
ciple)  and  now  we  must  have  equality  before 
property.  We  shall  then  reach  independence,  the 
primal  requisite  of  manhood,  for  one  cannot  be 
dependent  and  be  a  man.  Independence  is  the 
source  of  all  the  strong  and  fine  virtues;  it  ought 
to  be  secured  to  every  man  for  life  before  he  is 
born  as  one  of  his  indefeasible  rights,  like  the  air 
he  breathes. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         197 

To  be  independent  and  equal  he  must  be  born 
a  shareholder  in  the  world.  He  must  not  sneak 
into  existence  to  be  man  or  slave,  rich  or  poor,  free 
or  fettered,  by  chance ;  he  shall  not  come  into  pos 
session  of  what  is  required  as  the  preliminary  of 
manhood  by  an  accident  of  birth,  that  must  be  his 
of  ?.  certainty,  as  long  as  he  lives,  inalienably,  like 
light.  He  must  be  born  as  part  owner  of  the 
property  of  the  world.  The  world's  productive 
agencies,  machinery  and  land,  must  be  like  sun 
shine,  a  sure  basic  possession  of  his.  As  the  earth 
to  walk  on  is  a  physical  assumption  of  man's  ex 
istence,  because  he  cannot  float  or  fly,  so  must  he 
be  born  a  partner  to  the  possession  of  machinery 
and  land  as  a  social  prerequisite,  to  furnish  him  a 
ground  of  manhood  to  stand  on,  that  he  may  not 
perforce  be  a  beggar,  a  thief,  or  a  commercial 
ruffian,  to  get  footing  in  life. 

Machinery  is  like  land,  an  element  of  nature. 
That  man  has  fashioned  it  means  only  that  man 
has  placed  elemental  forces  of  nature  in  form  to 
do  work.  Nature  furnishes  the  force  and  mate 
rial,  man  merely  assists  her.  The  principles  dis 
covered  by  man  and  embodied  in  machinery  are 
all  possessions  of  nature.  Nature  supplies  the 
vitality  of  machinery,  nature  is  its  soul,  nature  is 
its  intelligence  and  strength,  man  only  gives  na 
ture  a  chance. 


198        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

3Tow  every  man  has  the  same  claim  upon  nature. 
By  what  principle  are  some  raised  above  others  to 
assert  larger  rights?  Men  are  emanations  from 
nature  and  by  reason  of  coming  from  her  they  be 
long  to  her  and  she  belongs  to  them.  By  whose 
authority  shall  nature  be  refused  to  her  owners? 
By  authority  of  the  strength  of  some  who  are 
stronger,  who  capture  more  than  their  own  ?  This 
is  not  authority  but  reasonless  force,  and  the 
weaker  need  only  to  unite  their  force  to  strip  the 
unreasonable  strong.  Bo  some  claim  a  monopoly 
of  nature  because  of  a  superior  power  to  manipu 
late  her?  Examine  that  claim  of  theirs.  The 
nature-monopolists  are  not  the  expert  manipu 
lators  of  nature ;  they  are  the  shrewd  movers  of  the 
pawns  and  tokens  of  the  wealth  springing  from 
the  expert  nature  manipulators ;  they  are  the  keen 
players  upon  the  men  who  handle  nature  and  pro 
duce  by  her  aid,  the  sharpers  on  the  human  and 
industrial  life-board.  The  hugest  nature-monopo 
lists  are  the  financiers,  men  removed  from  nature 
by  a  gulf,  who  could  not  guide  a  lever  or  turn  a 
wheel,  who  manipulate  only  empty  counters  of 
reality.  Hence  if  superior  skill  in  nature-man 
agement  gave  authority  to  monopolize,  the  present 
class  of  monopolists  would  have  no  right  at  all. 

But  manipulative  proficiency  does  not  confer 
authority  to  sweep  in  and  absorb  nature.  The 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         199 

reward  of  this  ability  is  to  be  found  in  exercising 
it.  Nature  has  attached  a  pleasure  to  the  use  of 
every  faculty,  increasing  with  the  vigor  of  the 
faculty;  this  is  the  payment  to  the  owner  of  the 
faculty  for  its  exercise.  If  he  asks  additionally 
to  be  given  a  private  grip  on  some  wide  mass  of 
nature  he  demands  what  he  pays  nothing  for,  hav 
ing  already  been  requited  in  allowance  to  exer 
cise  his  powers.  Does  he  claim  the  particular  priv 
ilege  of  impoverishing  others  of  the  elements  of 
nature  they  need  in  order  to  be  men?  He  is  an 
injurer,  an  industrial  felon,  a  thief.  What  kind 
of  a  pretended  server  of  them  is  he  who  in  return 
for  his  serving  would  unscrupulously  impoverish 
the  served?  Let  all  brand  him  as  the  plotter  of 
their  ruin. 

When  men  have  the  groundwork  of  life  as 
sured  they  can  begin  the  building  of  their  higher 
selves.  Compulsion  to  conquer  their  own  ground 
work  unless  they  are  favored  by  the  accident  of 
inheritance,  is  the  deadly  source  of  a  perpetual 
stream  of  human  waste;  those  who  have  faculties 
for  better  things,  for  the  very  best  things,  are 
driven  to  wear  them  out  and  deplete  their  time 
and  strength  mastering  the  mere  mechanics  of 
subsistence,  which  organic  society  should  have 
made  rapid  and  certain  for  them  as  their  first 
right.  The  great  purpose  of  human  wisdom  is  the 


200        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

organization  of  the  preliminaries  of  existence  in 
such  a  way  that  each  may  begin  his  best  creative 
career  sooner  and  find  much  done  for  him,  nor 
have  to  do  over  by  strenuous  and  wasting  struggle 
as  an  individual  what  might  be  socially  done  onco 
for  all  and  remain  organic  and  permanent  to  hu 
man  life.  This  is  the  process  of  building  up 
social  reflexes  and  retiring  a  wide  range  of  con 
suming  activities  out  of  the  individually  voluntary 
sphere.  Harassing  men  with  the  smaller  cares  of 
existence,,  the  cares  of  assured  living,  consumes 
without  requital  a  dreary  sum  of  energy  which 
should  flow  to  higher  evolution. 

This  priceless  quantity  of  power  would  be  res 
cued  for  real  uses  if  all  were  born  as  partners  in 
the  productive  organism  of  industry.  An  opening 
would  await  each  one  where  his  labor  would  be 
fully  paid, — not  as  a  hired  cipher,  granted  work  by 
favor  and  remunerated  according  to  the  law  of 
power  not  to  pay,  but  as  one  of  the  owners  of 
nature's  work  forces,  remunerated  with  the  total 
of  his  labor  contribution.  Then  those  desiring 
much  substance  to  consume  could  labor  much  and 
make  it,  those  devoted  to  interests  above  the  ma 
terial  could  reduce  their  time  of  labor,  earning 
fewer  things,  and  save  the  mass  of  their  power  for 
what  they  like. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        201 


CHAPTEE  XVII. 

THE  movement  that  Margaret  was  developing 
gathered  extensive  proportions.  For  a  while  onlj 
workingmen  and  women  came  to  hear  her,  as  is 
usual  in  constructive  social  changes,  but  finally 
colleges  became  aware  of  a  popular  earnestness 
and  economic  professors  thought  it  respectable  to 
study  the  motiving  principles  of  the  situation. 
They  appeared  at  meetings,  diagnosed  and  di 
gested  the  unrest,  and  began  to  assail  the  speaker 
with  questions. 

"Your  doctrine,"  said  an  eminent  political  econ 
omist,  "is  in  effect  nothing  but  the  religion  of  the 
stomach.  If  you  give  workingmen  enough  to  eat 
what  will  become  of  their  spiritual  aspirations  ?" 

Margaret  replied  that  if  the  religion  of  every 
one  who  is  well  off  is  the  Worship  of  Food  the 
time  had  come  to  deprive  the  rich  of  their  god 
Food,  for  their  own  good.  If  spiritual  aspiration 
grew  nowhere  but  in  starvation  the  rich  should  be 
benevolently  starved  without  delay,  to  give  them 
aspiration. 


2O2        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

What  was  the  philosophy  of  nurturing  one  class 
of  Stomach  Specialists,  the  rich,,  and  another  of 
stomach-starved  soul  specialists,  the  poor?  Was 
there  anything  to  admire  in  compulsory  spiritu 
ality  made  by  want?  And  when  had  the  world 
found  that  the  working  classes  possessed  such  a 
precious  spirituality?  No  others  seemed  anxious 
to  copy  it  by  becoming  workingmen.  The  Ee- 
ligion  of  the  Stomach  was  the  rich  man's  religion. 
Her  teaching  overthrew  it  with  the  Religion  of 
Human  Power,  growing  from  the  ample  and  intel 
ligent  nutrition  of  the  whole  human  race.  Ex 
cess  would  be  corrected.  All  men  would  have 
something  to  do  beside  idly  eating  what  others 
brought  them,  giving  a  death  blow  to  the  Belly 
Cult.  Neither  starved  nor  gourmanded  animate 
ever  made  racers. 

"I  insist,"  reiterated  the  professor,  read 
ing  from  a  work  of  his,  "that  if  you  gave 
workingmen  a  larger  claim  on  the  prop 
erty  of  the  world  you  would  place  the  neces 
sities  of  nutrition  at  the  summit  as  well  as 
at  the  base  of  human  development.  Human 
ity  would  be  at  the  end  as  at  the  beginning,  a 
stomach.  Nothing  but  an  enormous  stomach, 
whose  physical  necessities  would  constitute  tho 
sole  motive  of  all  mental  activities.  The  stomach 
would  be  the  prime  cause  and  the  end  of  humaiv 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         203 

ity."  The  savant  wiped  his  brow  proudly  and  sat 
down. 

"Then  you  mean/'  answered  Margaret,  "that 
all  who  now  have  the  large  grasp  on  the  world's 
property  which  you  deny  to  the  working  classes, 
are  but  the  enormous  'stomach'  you  fear  the  work 
ers  will  become  if  their  rightful  property  is 
granted  to  them?  You  certainly  say  just  that. 
You  mean  that  stomach  is  the  'prime  cause  and 
end'  of  all  the  prosperous  and  well-to-do?  For  if 
not  why  would  it  be  the  end  of  the  workers  if  they 
were  allowed  a  corresponding  prosperity? 

"But  if  your  words  are  true  you  give  an  all- 
sufficient  reason  for  ending  the  system  under 
which  we  live,  for  its  supreme  purpose  and  ambi 
tion  is  this  stomach-voluptuous  prosperity.  That 
is  its  great  bribe  and  reward — not  the  getting  of 
enough  for  a  sound,  right,  evolutional  life,  but  the 
gaining  of  excess.  And  you  say  that  if  the  power 
to  have  superfluities  or  even  sufficiency  were  ex 
tended  to  all  workers  they  would  grow  corrupt  and 
be  ruled  only  by  the  stomach  lust.  So  that  if  all 
who  succeed  now  sink  down  to  the  stomach  grade, 
and  the  cult  of  success  is  only  the  stomach  cult, 
this  cult  and  this  success  ought  to  be  abolished  all 
around  to  save  mankind. 

"In  truth  the  reigning  creed  of  success  or  su 
perfluity  is  not  the  desire  to  have  enough  for  an 


204        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

excellent  life  but  the  wild  greed  for  too  much. 
And  this  I  declare  is  destructive  of  all  high  things. 
Yet  it  is  none  the  less  the  supreme  motive  you  hold 
before  all  the  workingmen.  You  dangle  before 
them  the  hope  that  they  may  become  capitalists, 
superfluity-grabbers.  Stomach-worship  is,  from 
your  own  lips,  the  lure  which  you  offer  to  induce 
them  to  exert  themselves.  While  saying  that  the 
things  had  by  the  rich  would  corrupt  the  workers 
if  got,  in  the  same  breath  you  use  the  itch  to  get 
them  as  the  prime  incentive  to  make  the  workers 
work.  Also  as  reason  why  the  vast  mass  of  them 
shall  go  forever  without  necessaries,  for  you  tell 
them  that  if  most  will  do  without  necessities  all 
their  lives  a  petty  few  can  attain  corrupting  ex 
cess.  What  reward  is  this  to  the  mass  that  do  not 
attain  it? 

"But  why  do  you  want  the  workers  to  exert 
themselves?  Do  you  actually  wish  them  to  gain 
those  excess  things  which  you  say  will  turn  them 
into  mere  stomachs?  If  so  you  should  wish  the 
system  changed  so  that  all  might  have  the  su 
perfluous  and  graduate  into  stomachs.  Or  do  you 
only  want  the  workers  stimulated  by  a  shoddy  im 
possible  hope  to  create  the  superfluities  for  others, 
that  while  the  workers  grovel  and  rot  in  want  the 
oA'cops-takers  may  grovel  and  rot  in  excess,  as  con 
temptible  and  depraved  stomach-idolators  ?" 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         205 

Margaret  waited  for  a  reply  but  the  learned 
professor  kept  his  seat. 

"I  will  tell  you,"  she  concluded.  "The  purpose 
of  my  teaching  is  not  to  kindle  the  appetite  for 
superfluity.  It  would  abolish  that  craving  as  a 
motive,  because  it  is  coarse,  sensuous  and  faculty- 
slaying.  It  would  make  the  new  general  mo 
tive  to  be,  securing  what  men  need  for  the 
stomach  in  order  to  develop  those  rich  and  little- 
exercised  powers  above  stomach  which  all  men 
have." 

Another  professor  objected,  "It  is  evident  that 
such  a  regime  as  you  talk  of  implies  the  absolute 
dictatorship  of  the  State,  or,  what  comes  to  exactly 
the  same  thing,  of  the  community,  with  regard  to 
the  distribution  of  wealth,  and  a  no  less  absolute 
servitude  on  the  part  of  the  workers.  But  the 
workers  are  not  affected  by  this  argument.  They 
are  not  at  all  eager  for  liberty,  as  is  proved  by 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  they  have  acclaimed  all 
the  Csesars  when  a  Caesar  has  arisen;  and  they 
care  as  little  for  all  that  goes  to  make  the  greatness 
of  a  civilization;  for  arts,  sciences,  literature,  and 
so  forth,  which  would  disappear  at  once  in  such  a 
society." 

Sitting  down  the  professor  pursed  out  his  lips 
and  cast  his  eyes,  which  snapped  sharply  under  hia 


206        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

spectacles,  about  at  his  colleagues  as  much  as  to 
say,  That  will  be  the  end  of  her. 

Margaret  again  spoke:  "The  workers  are  not; 
more  guilty  of  acclaiming  Cassars  than  the  classes 
over  them  who  have  had  every  chance  to  know  bet 
ter.  Yet  this  is  one  of  the  darkest  faults  of  the 
working  class.  It  is  because  the  individual  work- 
ingman  thinks  himself  so  insignificant  that  he 
can  only  get  a  show  of  importance  by  resigning  his 
personality  to  some  one  else,  a  military  or  political 
Cassar,  who  thus  appropriates  the  personalities  of 
a  host  of  workingmen  and  so  becomes  great.  The 
workers  have  trusted  in  the  upper  class  and  when 
it  failed  them,  as  it  always  has,  they  turned  to  a 
Moses,  a  Bonaparte,  a  leader,  a  Cassar.  It  was 
sure  betrayal.  The  working  class  never  will  be 
free  till  it  learns  to  walk  without  the  go-cart  of 
leaders. 

"But  the  class  that  has  failed  above  everything 
in  American  society  is  the  middle  class.  It  ruled 
in  America.  Under  its  rule  political  liberty  has 
been  lost,  for  by  its  selfish  apathy  and  wealth- 
thirst  the  Commercial  and  Political  Bosses  have 
grown  and  taken  self-government  from  the  peo 
ple.  There  was  rare  material  equality  and  fair 
ness  of  opportunity  during  the  first  eighty  years  of 
our  national  life,  owing  to  the  accident  of  abun 
dant  land  and  minerals ;  greed  corrupted  the  heart 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         207 

of  the  middle  class  and  all  rushed  madly  after  for 
tunes,  seizing  and  monopolizing  to  the  best  of 
their  ability  every  one  of  those  vast  opportunities. 
Some  were  brilliantly  successful,  and  the  entire 
class  upheld  them  because  its  soul  was  bitten  by 
the  same  avarice  for  riches.  The  Calumet  and 
Hecla  copper  mine,  one  of  nature's  gifts  to  all, 
gave  as  returns  to  its  individual  seizers,  'dividends 
of  $10,000,000  in  a  single  year  on  a  nominal  cap 
ital  of  $2,500,000,  of  which  only  $1,200,000  was 
ever  paid  in — a  rate  of  400  per  cent,  on  the  par 
value,  or  833  per  cent,  on  the  cash  investment.  It 
has  paid  over  $80,000,000  in  dividends  in  thirty 
years.' 

"Through  the  abominable  private  rapacity  and 
filthy  gold-lust  of  the  once  great  middle  class  the 
country  lost  its  supreme  distinction  among  man 
kind — the  fair  degree  of  equality  and  general  well- 
being  of  its  citizens.  From  being  the  morally 
highest  nation,  a  true  republican  democracy,  it 
shot  down  into  a  sordid  plutocracy,  all  its  ideals 
gone,  diseased  to  the  core  with  the  ancient  vices  of 
the  wealth  and  power  worshiping  monarchies  of 
Europe.  It  is  the  middle  class  that  caused  this, 
because  its  soul  went  to  rot  in  greed. 

"And  now  the  new  Plutocracy,  which  this  mid 
dle  class  laid  as  an  egg  from  its  vitals,  turns  on  it 
as  its  Nemesis,  swiftly  wrenching  from  it  the  rag- 


2o8        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ged  'vestiges  of  its  power  and  manhood,  and  chang 
ing  it  from  a  self-poised  independent  class  to  a 
horde  of  hireling  serfs.  And  still  it  has  no  virtue 
to  return  to  principle  and  those  high  earlier  ideals 
of  national  grandeur  in  equality,  and  to  strike  for 
a  new  liberty.  The  workers  are  right  in  emanci 
pating  themselves  from  the  middle  class,  repudi 
ating  its  premiership,,  spewing  its  gross  hypocrit 
ical  ideals  out.  There  is  no  health  in  it." 

The  professor  exclaimed  cheerfully:  "You 
don't  hurt  my  feelings  by  your  scorn  of  the  mid 
dle  class,  which  I  believe  is  historically  just,  but 
not  theoretically  so.  Much  is  correct  in  fact  which 
cannot  be  permitted  in  theory,  my  dear  young 
lady.  Take  care  of  your  theories  and  your  facts 
will  take  care  of  themselves.  Professors  are  above 
the  middle  class.  We  belong  socially  to  the  Plu 
tocracy." 

"You  ride  in  the  petticoat  folds  of  the  Plu 
tocracy,"  laughed  Margaret.  "You  sometimes 
marry  an  errant  daughter  of  their  clan,  you're 
luckier  than  their  coachmen  about  that.  A  few 
weeks  ago  the  president  of  the  country  went  to 
Philadelphia  and  was  invited  by  a  prominent 
man  of  wealth  to  meet  the  six  or  seven  hundred 
most  important  men  of  the  city.  That  town  has  a 
university,  and  one  of  its  professors,  moved  by 
pride  of  position,  went  over  the  list  of  guests  to  see 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         209 

how  many  of  its  faculty  were  important  men. 
How  many  do  yon  think  had  been  recognized? 
Not  one.  Capitalists  know  the  professors  are  a 
safe  and  harmless  lot  and  they  don't  need  to  re 
spect  them  to  keep  them  good. 

"But  you  say.,  Professor,  that  the  workers  do 
not  care  for  'all  that  goes  to  make  the  greatness 
of  civilization;  for  arts,  sciences,  literature,  and 
so  forth/  and  you  assert  that  these  would  disap 
pear  if  the  workers  came  on  top.  What  I  ask  you  / 
is,  how  much  the  middle  class  and  the  plutocrats 
have  cared  for  these  things?  Our  so-called  art  is 
trivial  and  childish,  its  producers  are  meek  beg 
gars  of  the  rich  for  the  means  to  subsist — typical 
fruit  of  that  middle  class,  devoid  of  intellect  or 
courage  to  declare  and  obtain  their  economic  rights, 
scornful,  even,  of  them,  for  a  gift  in  the  hat  from 
the  rich — a  picture  ordered,  or  a  ticket  to  their 
mendicant  patronessed  concert  purchased.  Art 
from  such  sources  must  be  nerveless,  insipid, 
sterile,  stale.  And  it  is. 

"As  to  sciences,  they  have  fared  slightly  better 
because  they  related  to  material  wealth  and  were 
fondled  by  the  Rich  and  Demi-rich  as  means  to 
further  enrichment.  Yet  there  is  work  without 
limit  waiting  and  needing  to  be  done  for  the  good 
of  mankind  in  the  multitudinous  branches  of  sci 
ence,  while  there  are  none  to  undertake  it.  For 


2io        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

there  are  no  resources  to  raise  up  and  pay  the 
scientists,  although  they  work  for  the  butler's  sal 
ary  of  a  rich  man,  and  the  most  renowned  and  use 
ful  of  them  receive  the  pay  of  his  cook. 

"Science  is  literally  starved,  though  the  wealth 
of  the  country  is  nearly  a  hundred  billion  dollars. 
But  it  is  concentrated  and  monopolized,  the  peo 
ple  do  not  have  it  and  cannot  turn  it  to  science  for 
general  good.  The  eight  hundred  Trusts,  rapidly 
consolidating  together,  have  it.  The  owners  of  it 
do  not  care  for  science  or  general  good,  being  too 
crude  and  uncultivated,  savage  and  self-pamper 
ing,  for  that;  they  care  for  costly  eating,  palaces, 
jewels,  stables,  kennels,  automobiles,  yachts,  vo 
luptuous  luxury  and  dizzying  ostentation. 

"The  wedding  of  one  of  their  scions  the  other 
day,  who  has  already  in  his  brief  possession  of  the 
earth  consumed  more  wealth,  creating  none,  than 
tons  of  workingmen,  creators  of  wealth,  are  al 
lowed  in  a  lifetime,  cost  thousands,  enough  to  keep 
many  scientists  working  for  the  good  of  all  men 
for  many  years.  Imagine  it!  We  had  to  feed  it 
all  to  these  useless  butterflies  in  one  day,  with 
presents  that  would  have  made  King  Solomon 
pale.  This  is  the  way  we  love  science,  for  we  do 
not  have  to  cram  our  riches  into  butterflies'  stom 
achs,  we  could  put  it  into  science  for  the  good  of 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        211 

us  all  if  we  wished  to.    We  could  flip  the  butter 
flies  off. 

"And  owing  to  the  great  figure  cut  by  these  cul- 
tureless  rich  cavorting  in  frivolous  grandeur  be 
fore  the  world,  most  of  the  young  with  privilege 
and  brains  launch  themselves  into  life  to  cheaply 
copy  them,  not  turning  their  strength  to  science 
and  the  rarer  things  that  shall  make  men  a  finer, 
happier  and  grander  type. 

"For  the  service  of  mankind,  for  the  lifting  and 
regeneration  of  the  masses,  from  whom  the  sci 
ences  draw  their  life,  the  career  of  the  sciences  has 
been  a  wonder  and  a  shame.  Invention,  the 
brother  of  science,  has  flourished  marvelously,  es 
pecially  in  the  pastime  objects  of  embellishment 
for  the  great  buyers,  yet  one  of  your  own  writers 
confesses,  'Those  who  contemplate  the  greater 
command  over  the  means  of  production  which  has 
been  placed  within  our  reach  by  the  age  of  in 
vention,  cannot  but  feel  a  sense  of  disappointment 
that  so  little  has  resulted  for  the  happiness  of  the 
human  race/  And  scientists  are  like  artists  and 
our  smile-searching  literary  guild,  softened  by  the 
same  middle-class  dissolvent,  Plutocracy-homage. 
Let  us  call  our  literary  constellation  excavators  of  / 
smiles,  court  jesters,  amusers,  vaudeville  dancers 
with  the  pen.  Scientists,  cloistered  in  their  labo 
ratories  and  riding  the  one-legged  god  Evolution, 


212        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

let  society  stagger  down  its  course,  despoiled  of 
political  freedom  by  the  Boss,  and  of  the  most 
sacred  rights  of  manhood  and  improvement  hy  the 
Plutocrat.  Such  are  the  human  fruits  of  science 
in  its  own  field. 

"And  literature.  'Sold  out'  is  the  inscription  on 
it.  The  press,  bought  up  for  business  jobs  by  the 
rich.  Its  power  to  educate  prostituted  to  make  the 
people  believe — in  the  rich.  Truth,  denied  when 
a  lie  serves  the  plot  against  society,  of  the  rich. 
The  people's  rightful  Voice,  for  such  is  the  news 
paper  press,  degraded  to  an  agency  to  blind,  not 
to  enlighten,  because  Plutocracy  and  Enlighten 
ment  are  enemies.  For  Plutocracy  owns  the  press. 
Books  are  like  bills  proposed  in  Congress :  such  as 
can  serve  some  financial  interest  are  passed,  all 
others  are  killed  in  the  Committee  of  Publishers. 
Congress  is  not  in  its  business  for  the  health  of 
legislation  or  the  Nation,  nor  are  publishers  in 
their  trade  for  the  health  of  Literature  or  Man 
kind;  they  are  both  concerned  in  the  effect  of  bills 
and  books  on  their  Wealth.  Those  writers  alone 
are  permitted  to  give  the  world  books  who  can  pre 
sumptively  increase  the  publishers'  wealth.  The 
books  that  chiefly  need  to  be  written  will  not  do 
this.  These  books  are  the  real  literature  of  the  age, 
or  would  be  if  they  came.  They  are  not  born  be 
cause  the  minds  that  could  create  them  know  they 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         213 

would  be  written  only  for  burial  in  their  desks. 
Nor  have  many  who  could  make  real  books  the  in 
come  for  leisure  to  produce  them;  and  whoever 
would  honestly  earn  wealth  for  leisure  would  have 
no  vitality  to  invest  in  significant  thinking  and 
writing  afterward.  While  most  of  the  volumes 
that  appear  serve  no  end  but  the  publishers',  and 
both  literature  and  society  would  be  better  if  they 
had  never  seen  the  light,  the  mouths  of  thinkers 
who  are  worth  hearing  are  successfully  closed  and 
their  pens  stilled. 

"This/'  said  Margaret,  finishing,  "is  what  our 
society,  managed  by  the  middle  and  plutocratic 
classes,  has  done  for  literature.  It  has  extermi 
nated  it.  It  has  destroyed  all  taste  for  good  read 
ing,  the  literature  of  thoughts  and  originality,  of 
inspiration  and  action,  of  breadth  and  strength  and 
light,  by  suppressing  its  publication.  The  press  is 
more  censored  by  the  publishers'  test  and  gauntlet 
of  profits  than  a  national  bureau  to  expurgate  all 
good  things  could  impoverish  it. 

"Could  the  working  class  do  worse  than  this? 
Is  anything  worse  left  to  do  ? 

"One  of  the  strongest  forces  toward  the  impend 
ing  revolution  is  the  decision  of  the  workers  to  en 
ter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Science,  Literature  and 
Art.  The  saying  that  these  things  will  die  when 
that  class  obliterates  plutocracy  is  untrue.  False 


214        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

literature  and  art  will  die,  as  they  ought  to.  The 
venal  art  for  instance  pursued  for  kings  and  capi 
talists  at  which  Leopold  the  Libertine,  of  Belgium, 
gibed:  'Sculptors  are  forever  talking  of  high  art 
because  it's  their  business  to  be  paid  for  disfigur 
ing  public  parks  and  places  with  cross-eyed  royal 
/statues/  True  art  and  literature  and  a  science  de 
voted  to  universal  life  and  happiness  will  live. 
They  will  enter  new  fields  and  create  new  types. 
The  dreary  vacuity  of  literature  and  art  which 
makes  us  marvel  at  their  face  to  exist  will  give 
place  to  magical  products  of  strength  and  spirit. 
The  liberated  genius  of  the  working  class  will  con 
tribute  most  to  this." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        215 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  professor  with  the  small  shining  eyes  was 
not  satisfied;  pulling  something*  from  under  his 
chair  he  was  on  his  feet  again. 

"You  have  carefully  evaded  the  main  issue,"  he 
snapped.  "I  have  a  book  here  which  demolishes 
such  ideas  as  yours  very  neatly/5  and  he  proceeded 
to  read : 

"In  exchange  for  their  rations,  which  the  ubiqui 
tous  theorists  and  agitators  of  our  time  promise 
him,  the  worker  would  perform  his  work  under 
the  surveillance  of  State  functionaries,  like  so 
many  convicts  under  the  eye  and  hand  of  the 
warder.  All  individual  motive  would  be  stifled, 
and  each  worker  would  rest,  sleep,  and  eat  at  the 
bidding  of  headmen  put  in  authority  over  matters 
of  food,,  work,  recreation,  and  the  perfect  equality 
of  all. 

"All   stimulus  being   destroyed,  no  one  would 

*Le  Bon. 


216        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

make  an  effort  to  ameliorate  or  to  escape  from  his 
position.  It  would  be  slavery  of  the  gloomiest 
kind,  without  a  hope  of  enfranchisement.  Under 
the  domination  of  the  capitalist  the  worker  can  at 
least  dream  of  becoming,  and  sometimes  does  be 
come  a  capitalist  in  his  turn.  What  dream  could 
he  indulge  in  under  the  anonymous  and  brutally 
despotic  tyranny  of  a  levelling  State  which  should 
foresee  all  his  needs  and  direct  his  will?  Some 
one  has  remarked  that  the  social  organization 
would  be  very  like  that  of  the  Jesuits  of  Paraguay. 
Would  it  not  resemble  rather  the  organization  of 
the  negroes  on  the  old  slave  plantations  ?" 

"This  indictment  comes  from  what  country?" 
asked  Margaret. 

"France." 

"And  is  an  attack  on  the  idea  of  substituting 
popular  ownership  for  capitalist  ownership  so  that 
the  product  of  labor-capital  work  might  be  some 
what  nearly  equally  distributed?" 

"Yes." 

"Was  not  the  idea  of  well  diffused  income  that 
on  which  America  throve  until  1860?" 

"It  was." 

"But  you  think  it  would  be  dangerous  now  ?" 

"Yes,  since  we  have  found  how  generous  million 
aires  are  to  colleges  I  see  that  diffusion  of  income 
would  require  central,  collective  ownership  of 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        217 

capital,  the  means  of  income,  which  would  erect  a 
tyrannous  State." 

"Did  not  diffused,  fairly  equal  incomes,  by  de 
veloping  the  many,  produce  the  many  strong  indi 
viduals  that  built  us  into  a  great  nation  ?" 

"I  admit  that." 

"And  you  think  that  under  headship  of  a  few 
giant  capitalists  popular  strength  will  continue  to 
be  generated?" 

"By  no  means,"  hastened  the  professor. 

"And  you  are  willing  to  see  it  lost?" 

"Not  willing,  because  its  loss  will  deplete  our 
national  power,  but  as  countries  grow  older  there's 
no  way  to  save  this  individual  popular  strength. 
We  make  up  for  it  by  increasing  the  number  of 
units,  all  lower  ones." 

"Your  doctrine  is  one  of  despair  then." 

"The  history  of  humanity  compels  it.  The  gos 
pel  of  intelligence  is  enlightened  despair." 

"Of  respectable,  academic,  plutocracy-fed  in 
telligence,  yes,  but  not  of  popular,  unfeminated  in 
telligence.  Academies  seldom  know  there  is  a  pop-,/ 
ular  question  till  the  people  have  solved  it.  The 
problem  of  the  age  is  establishment  of  approximate 
equality  of  incomes.  Capitalists  say  we  shall  have 
state  tyranny  if  we  solve  that.  Why  ?  Because  the 
capitalist  banditti  are  in  the  saddle  of  tyranny  now 
and  want  to  stay,  so  they  make  up  stories  to 


218         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

frighten  us.  But  we  should  look  back.  Before 
1860  the  people  were  carrying  few  of  these  capi 
talist  riders,  the  common  people  (not  common 
then)  were  well  up  toward  equality,  and  the  re 
sult?  All  things  went  to  produce  happiness  and 
energy  as  seldom  before  in  the  world. 

"It  is  crippled  reasoning  to  conclude  that  those 
whose  fathers  had  ability  to  manage  life  well  in 
this  country  for  ninety  years  under  diffusion  of 
general  income  have  not  themselves  ability  to  do  it 
again  under  new  conditions,  and  do  it  without 
state  tyranny.  Our  people  are  trained  to  person 
ally  conduct  industry;  the  generation  that  indi 
vidually  owned  and  managed  has  not  yet  passed; 
only  the  last  ten  years  have  seen  the  dizzy  growth 
of  monopoly  transform  the  independent  owner  into 
the  hired  commercial  speck.  The  long-bred  capac 
ity  for  free  control  remains  in  the  people,  it  should 
be  utilized  and  preserved  before  final  extinction. 
The  restoration  of  liberty  and  initiative  will  come 
by  reinstating  all  in  ownership ;  that  must  be  done 
by  their  entrance  as  active  partners  into  the  pres 
ent  great  organizations  of  industry. 

"Where  lies  the  'State  tyranny'  in  this  ?  Where 
the  'servitude  of  the  workers'  ?  What  'surveillance 
by  state  functionaries'  is  there,  or  workers  like  so 
many  convicts  under  the  eye  of  the  warder'  ?  The 
state  does  not  take  over  the  industries  or  conduct 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         219 

them;  the  people  collectively  do  not  appropriate 

them   to   a   collective   centralized    ownership   and 

management;  the  people  enter  into  the  industries 

as  they  are,  as  owners  instead  of  hirelings,  those 

identified   with  each   species  of  industry  as  em 

ployes  passing  forward  in  it   as  partners.     The 

next  great  industrial  step  is  for  all  men  to  be  at  V'     ^ 

the  same  time  workers,  owners  and  directors  in 

the  wide  industrial  corporations.     The  exclusive 

capitalist  owner  of  to-day  totally  disappears,  all 

become  capitalist  owners. 

"This  is  the  joint-stock  idea  broadened  to  in 
clude  every  one  and  elicit  the  best  faculty  in  all 
by  giving  them  the  rewards  of  owning  and  the  pro 
gressive  exercise  of  management;  for  after  the 
transition  stage  of  training,  direction  would  cen 
tre  in  the  joint  ownership,  as  the  management  of 
a  democratic  church  organization  does.  Complete 
self-  or  membership-government  is  easy  to  realize 
when  the  spurious  right  of  some  to  plunder 
through  private  holding  and  its  insatiate  grasping- 
ness  is  dissolved." 

"A  very  pretty  idea,*'  growled  the  professor,  who 
now  began  to  see  into  it  for  the  first  time,  "but  it 
•will  take  a  million  years  of  education  to  get  human 
nature  ready  for  it." 

"Certainly  it  will,  of  present  college  education," 
Margaret  answered,  "though  I  think  it  would  need 


22O        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

two  million;  but  it  will  not  take  ten  years  of  an 
intelligent,  truthful,  and  direct  education.  Even 
now  you  can  hear  the  growing  people  splitting 
the  buttons  of  capitalism,  although  they  don't 
yet  know  what  they  will  put  on  in  its  place.  The 
most  conservative  begin  to  see  great  social  danger 
if  the  people  are  not  restored  to  fuller  ownership. 
A  Chicago  judge*  lately  said: 

"  'The  separation  of  labor  from  proprietorship, 
the  separate  mobilization  of  these  two  forces  as 
enemies,  instead  of  their  commingling  in  com 
mon  interest,  is  the  most  unrepublican  and  menac 
ing  fact  that  now  confronts  the  American  people. 
The  consolidation  idea,  thus  far,  has  accentuated 
this  menace.  It  has  done  what  is  still  more 
menacing:  in  narrowing  the  personnel  of  the  pro 
prietorship  of  the  country  it  is  detaching  from 
the  friends  of  property  the  great  liberal  body  of 
citizenship.  .  .  .  Will  the  great  body  of  the 
people,  excluded  from  participation  in  the  prop 
erty  of  the  country,  remain  loyal  to  the  order  of 
things  to  which  property  must  look  for  its  bul 
wark?  Can  we  expect  a  bystander  to  have  the 
interest  of  one  who  has  a  stake  in  events?  Can 
we  invoke  the  name  of  America  in  an  order  of 
events  that,  in  their  practical  outcome,  are  essen 
tially  un-American  and  unrepublican?  .... 

*Grosscup. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        221 

Not  until  the  time  when  the  property  acquiring 
instinct  of  the  country  is  again  unified  upon  a 
basis  fair  alike  to  all,  can  we  rest  assured  that  the 
outcome  of  the  encounter  need  be  no  longer 
feared/ 

"The  judge  then  asks  what  is  such  a  fair  basis, 
and  whether  the  people  will  under  any  conditions 
to  any  large  extent  'enter  the  field  of  corporate 
ownership/  and  his  reply  is  wholly  feeble.  He 
can  only  say  that  he  believes  they  will  when  'once 
corporate  organization  and  management  are 
cleared  of  pitfalls.'  Then,  he  thinks,  'the  Ameri 
can  people  will  be  found  ready  to  take  up  again 
their  share  in  the  proprietorship  of  the  country/ 

"But  liow  are  they  to  get  it?  He  does  not  tell 
us,  though  this  is  the  crux.  Undoubtedly  many 
people  would  like  to  have  back  their  share  in  pro 
prietorship  which  the  rich  combines  have  taken 
away  from  them.  For  example,  those  whom  a 
Eockefeller  sent  to  the  wall  in  forming  the  Stand 
ard  would  doubtless  like  to  have  what  he  took  of 
theirs  back,  how  are  they  to  get  it  ?  'He  (Eocke 
feller)  applied  under-selling  for  destroying  his 
rivals'  market  with  the  same  deliberation  and 
persistency  that  characterized  all  his  efforts,  and 
in  the  long  run  he  always  won/  A  partner  of 
the  Citizens'  Oil  Eefining  Company,  of  Pitts- 
burg,  testified  to  Congress: 


222        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"'In  1874  I  went  to  see  Kockefeller,  to  find 
if  we  could  make  arrangements  with  him  by  which 
we  could  run  a  portion  of  our  works.  It  was  a 
very  brief  interview.  He  said  there  was  no  hope 
for  us  at  all.  He  remarked  this — I  cannot  give 
the  exact  quotation — "There  is  no  hope  for  us," 
and  probably  he  said,  "There  is  no  hope  for  any 
of  us;"  but  he  says  "The  weakest  must  go  first." 
And  we  went.' 

"The  railroads  discriminated  in  Eockefeller's 
favor  in  freight  rates,  and  this  broke  his  rivals 
down.  It  was  a  secret  discrimination,  in  which 
the  roads  violated  their  charters  and  repudiated 
their  honor  toward  the  public.  They  had  assured 
the  public  that  rates  were  equal,  thus  adding  false 
hood  to  crime.  'It  was  four  years  before  those 
who  suffered  from  the  discriminations  were  able 
to  get  the  railroad  officials  into  court  and  secure 
proof  of  them/  By  that  time  the  evil  had  been 
done.  The  other  day  the  Standard  Company 
paid  $19,400,000  as  a  quarterly  dividend  of  20 
per  cent.,  of  which  Eockefeller  alone  received 
$8,000,000,  or  nearly  half.  Its  annual  dividend 
is  about  $80,000,000,  its  founder's  part  of  this 
$32,000,000.  This  is  his  reward  for  taking  away 
the  independent  business  of  all  other  oil  refiners, 
paid  hrn  by  a  grateful  nation.  How  are  those 
whom  he  'relieved'  to  get  their  share  in  proprietor- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        223 

ship  back?  Judge  Grosscup  does  not  say.  This 
hold-up  stands  as  a  permanency.  The  friends  of 
private  property,  as  it  is,  never  attempt  to  correct 
past  crimes  and  evils.  They  are  satisfied  if  they 
can  prevent  just  enough  future  crimes  to  keep 
the  great  principle  of  private  property  intact. 

"However,  that  is  what  they  cannot  do.  The 
people  ask  how  these  great  frauds  of  the  past  are 
to  be  undone,  and  eternal  tribute-paying  based  on 
these  frauds  stopped.  Nor  will  they  ever  rest 
until  they  are  undone.  There  is  a  great  difference 
between  the  popular  mind  and  the  mind  that 
lives  on  vested  interests:  the  vested  interest 
minds  are  unconcerned  about  past  crimes  because 
they  more  or  less  live  on  them.  But  the  results 
of  a  past  crime  are  cumulative  and  imperishable 
if  the  conditions  of  the  crime  are  not  removed. 
Industrial  absorption  cannot  be  held  stationary, 
it  has  an  internal  law  of  its  own,  and  has  only 
begun  its  work,  the  evolution  of  the  Standard 
crime  which  held  up  the  nation  has  no  limits  and 
no  possible  stoppage  as  property  theories  are. 
Follow  its  course: 

"Kockefeller's  thirty-two  million  gift  from  the 
people  needs  investment.     With  it  he  buys  other 
industries,  making  monopolies  of  them  like  the  v" 
Standard.     By  these  his  annual  income  is  raised 
to  fifty,  one  hundred,  two  hundred  millions.   This 


224        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

he  annually  invests,  buying,  buying,  buying  indus 
tries.  He  applies  the  same  monopoly  methods  to 
their  management  that  gives  the  Standard  20 
per  cent,  quarterly  dividends.  That  method  is 
the  simplest — turn  the  screws  on  the  public  till 
they  disgorge  what  dividend  you  want.  Turning 
the  screws  is  merely  raising  the  price  of  a  neces 
sary  product.  You  can  do  it  by  a  word  in  the 
telephone  when  you  own  all  the  industries  that 
make  the  product.  When  all  American  industries 
are  bought  in  by  dividends  thus  screwed  from 
the  people,  the  industries  of  the  Old  World,  Asia 
and  Africa  can  be  purchased  with  the  aggregate 
annual  dividends.  The  whole  world  can  be 
'swiped'  with  a  show  of  commercial  honor  after 
the  first  unspeakable  dishonor.  The  size  of  com 
mercial  honor  is  to  screw  from  the  country  all 
the  dividend  you  can  get,  and  undersell  com 
petitors  till  you  have  routed  them  out  of  business 
and  you  have  a  monopoly  of  the  whole  thing. 

"There  is  no  'thimble  rigging*  or  'pitfalls'  in 
this;  it  is  straight  business  of  the  honorable 
curved  business  kind.  Will  the  Chicago  judge 
tell  how  the  people  are  to  resume  their  proprietor 
ship  in  these  absorbed  industries?  He  speaks  as 
if  they  all  had  but  to  debonairly  decide  to  take  a 
partnership  with  the  absorbers,  and  the  thing  were 
done. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         225 

"Evidently  they  can  do  no  such  thing.  The 
same  wealth-gathering  power  of  large  property 
which  made  the  first  steps  possible  ensures  the 
full  completion  of  the  process;  indeed,  that  power 
is  far  more  intensely  operative  now  because  the 
concentrated  aggregates  of  property  are  so  pro 
digiously  greater.  The  people  are  ousted  lastingly 
from  proprietorship.  The  Trusts  make  all  the 
money  and  the  people  cannot  save  any  to  buy  into 
them.  If  they  save,  the  screws  of  price  are  turned 
and  away  flow  the  savings  back  to  the  Trusts. 
The  people  now  have  no  stake  in  the  industry  of 
the  country.  The  people  are  now  facing  the  great 
Absorbers  as  enemies.  They  see  them  clearly  at 
last  as  commercial  bandits  and  buccaneers.  The 
condition  which  the  Chicago  jurist  feared  is  here 
— 'The  separation  of  labor  from  proprietorship, 
the  separate  mobilization  of  these  two  forces  as 
enemies/  This  'most  unrepublican,  un-American, 
menacing  fact'  now  exists. 

"It  is  clear,  too,  that  there  is  but  one  way  out 
of  it.  That  is  by  ousting  the  ousters.  The  few 
absorbers  may  try  to  buy  up  support  for  what 
they  have  done  (support  of  the  rights  of  property 
they  call  it,  support  of  the  privilege  of  unlimited 
freebooting  being  what  it  is)  by  some  sort  of 
stock  distribution  on  easy  terms  among  the  class 
that  has  still  a  remnant  left  to  buy  with,  thus 


226        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

aiming  to  engage  that  class  to  defend  their  in^ 
terests.  This  will  fail.  The  old  sore  of  past  rob 
bery  will  not  close.  And  the  great  buccaneers 
are  too  greedy.  Some  new  unprincipled  plunger 
will  arise  any  minute  and  sweep  in  all  these  help 
less  small  fry  have  left.  (They  call  him  unprin 
cipled  because  he  does  not  limit  himself  to  sharing 
tricks  with  his  colleague  absorbers,  but  plays  a 
lone  game.)  There  is  no  more  ruth  than  real  in 
telligence  among  the  Great  Gang.  They  will 
again  fleece  this  small  fry,  and  then  will  have  it 
all  against  them. 

"But  it  is  now  too  late  to  bribe  the  little  capital 
ists  with  the  bones  of  concession,  anyway.  A  man 
once  sand-bagged  and  robbed  does  not  feel  easy 
alone  with  his  robber  anywhere,  even  if  the  rob 
ber  offers  him  a  dollar  of  the  thousands  he  stole, 
at  a  low  rate  of  interest.  It  is  going  to  be  hard 
for  the  Great  Gang  to  get  its  collar  back  on  the 
men  they  have  already  stripped  so  unconscionably. 

"However,  there  is  a  final  entirely  new  aspect 
of  the  case.  The  attitude  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  people,  whose  base  is  composed  of  the  muscular 
class,  has  changed.  The  hand  toilers  have  a  new 
idea  of  property  learned  from  the  brilliant  fraud 
by  which  the  people  were  juggled  of  proprietor 
ship.  They  know  that  under  this  private  property 
regime  they  can  never  be  safe;  they  will  never 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         227 

trust  it  in  its  present  shape  again.  They  are 
always  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  have  robbed 
them  of  all  stake  in  the  country.  The  methods 
used  for  it  have  taught  them  what  great  private 
fortunes  rest  on — always  either  on  fraud  or  a 
form  of  screwing,  which  is  fraud.  But  their  great  ^ 
illumination  is  this :  the  colossal  frauds  or  absorp 
tions  have  given  their  few  conductors  a  simply 
stupendous  cinch  on  the  nation's  labor  and 
wealth ;  their  vantage  now  for  perpetual  extraction 
of  wealth  from  the  people  is  infinite.  The  fraud 
does  not  stop,  it  goes  on,  the  people  forever  paying 
the  bill.  This  huge  owning  of  everything  by  the 
few  and  their  collection  of  huge  dividends  because 
they  own — immense  annual  robbings  because  of 
the  gigantic  success  of  their  first  mighty  steal- 
make  the  many,  commercial  valets  of  the  Great 
Gang. 

"A  position  which  the  inheritors  of  the  Ameri 
can  continent  repudiate.  And  their  repudiation 
means  Change.  The  past  crimes  must  be  righted. 
Sons  of  'the  men  who  fired  King  George  will  ditch 
Pocket-Book  Kings. 

"Now  the  people  cannot  annul  past  wrongs 
without  all  of  them  returning  to  proprietorship. 
It  would  soothe  Grosscup  if  enough  could  share 
proprietorship  on  a  small  scale  to  keep  the  rest 
out  and  awed.  Every  vested  interest  intellect 


228        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

would  like  that.  Happily  the  sentiment  is  senile. 
The  new  doctrine  of  the  world  is  that  all  have  a 
right  to  own,  that  all  must  own,  that  all  shall 
own.  When  this  doctrine  is  grasped,  the  modern 
position  of  mankind  is  mastered.  Days,  years 
and  decades  should  be  spent  by  vested  interest  in 
tellects  to  comprehend  this.  Exclusion  ownership 
is  ended.  Curse  the  fact,  deny  it,  refute  it — it 
remains.  Property  henceforth  goes  round  Man, 
not  man  round  Property. 

"The  whole  people  have  seen  demonstrated  how 
the  few  got  their  wealth  away.  That  lesson  was 
laid  on  welt  after  welt  with  a  commercial  raw 
hide.  Out  of  the  people  came  the  monstrous  pri 
vate  wealth,  back  to  the  people  it  must  go. 

"How?  Logically  by  the  full  individual  part 
nership  of  all  in  these  Trusts. 

"It  is  impossible  to  sift  out  now  of  how  much 
each  has  been  robbed;  that  were  needless.  A 
restoration  to  his  share  in  the  energies  of  pro 
duction  is  equitable  restoration.  The  constitution 
of  an  order  in  which  none  can  be  robbed  again. 
That  is  perpetual  equity. 

"The  industrial  trend  focuses  to  this  solution. 
The  movements  to  take  the  people  partially  in 
by  profit  sharing  and  the  sale  of  fractional  stock 
to  the  workers  are  signs  of  the  breeze  that  will  soon 
be  a  tempest.  The  principle  that  they  must  own 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         229 

in  the  works  begins  to  be  recognized,  they  will 
do  the  rest.  For  the  principle  is  a  travesty  unless 
the  ownership  is  equal.  The  industries  cannot  be 
divided  up  among  the  people,  they  cannot  be  split 
again  into  little  private  industries,  the  advantages 
of  consolidation,  mass-capital,  and  labor  saving 
cannot  be  lost,  yet  the  few  shall  not  engorge  the 
benefits:  therefore,  to  restore  the  people  to  pro 
prietorship,  give  them  a  stake  in  the  country,  re 
move  the  menace  of  class  war,  make  the  nation 
again  republican  and  American,  and  give  the 
people  the  benefit  of  inventions,  machinery  and 
industry  which  they  made  and  built  up,  the  people 
one  and  all  must  be  accepted  as  owning  equals 
into  the  great  concerns/' 


230        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTEB  XIX. 

"You  have  the  faith  of  ignorance/'  retorted 
another  professor.,  with  sarcasm;  "it  is  clear  you 
are  uneducated.7' 

Margaret  continued: 

"The  plan  before  you  conforms  to  the  native 
Anglo-Saxon  principle  of  local  self-government. 
Collective  ownership  nationally  might  turn  out  to 
he  monarchical.  All  centralizing  of  management 
is  monarchical.  Whether  the  collective  ownership 
is  centralized  in  a  State  such  as  we  now  have,  or  in 
a  theoretically  popularized  State,  the  principle 
and  the  result  might  be  monarchical.  There  would 
need  to  be  a  hierarchy  of  managers  on  a  large 
scale,  representative  of  the  people  and  elected  by 
the  people,  but  this  would  not  be  popular  self- 
management.  The  great  size  invites  direction 
from  above  on  a  corresponding  scale,  which  in  so 
much  weakens  individual  control.  The  American 
system  of  political  representative  government  is 
but  an  adaptation  of  monarchical  government,  and 
only  a  slight  departure  from  it.  The  people  do 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         231 

not  rule  though  they  intend  and  pretend  to. 
Their  agent-representatives  (or  the  wealth-clique 
that  directs  their  representatives)  rule. 

"This  is  inevitable.  Delegated  people  always 
arrogate  power  not  given  them  by  their  electors 
and  make  themselves  an  over-class.  Centraliza 
tion  plays  helplessly  into  the  hands  of  this  usur 
pation.  The  individual  becomes  less,  the  machine 
more.  At  length  the  machine  is  all.  Be  it  ec 
clesiastical,,  political,  or  industrial  machine,  the 
law  holds.  Freedom,  development  and  general 
strength  are  secured  by  increasing  the  direct  ac 
tion  of  individuals  without  the  intervention  of 
delegated  agents.  It  is  delegated  agents  that 
make  a  machine;  when  on  the  contrary  all  com 
ponent  individuals  act  together  directly  it  is  a 
sound  living  organism.  In  proportion  as  you  add 
self-sustained  strength  to  the  units  you  increase 
the  volume  of  power  of  the  whole.  Monarchies 
and  representative  republics  have  wilfully  strayed 
from  this  law;  capitalist  industries  have  naturally 
copied  them  in  forgetting  it.  The  overweening 
instinct  to  be  a  king  or  a  tribal  chief  over  men  in 
politics,  religion,  and  industry,  succeeds  from 
men  letting  their  representatives  escape  them, 
which  escape  is  the  prime  property,  prosperity, 
and  conspiracy  of  representatives.  The  cure  is 
abolition  of  representatives. 


232         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"Germany  is  a  nation  where  self-government  is 
least  and  centralization  greatest;  ideas  of  central 
and  collective  ownership  thrive  there  best.  The 
French  have  been  trained  for  many  centuries  to 
look  to  their  State  for  initiative ;  there  the  idea  of 
general  collective  ownership  guided  from  above 
finds  effusive  welcome.  Action  from  diffused,  lo 
cal  and  personal  initiative  is  more  congenial  to 
England,  but  it  is  supremely  in  accord  with  Amer 
ican  nature,  principles,  and  history.  Not  be 
cause  we  are  brighter  or  have  a  drop  more  of  nerve 
fluid,  but  because  we  were  formed  apart  on  an  un 
tamed  virgin  continent  running  over  with  opu 
lence.  Our  acquired  traits  have  been  vitally 
strengthened  by  the  circumstance  that  for  a  cen 
tury  and  a  quarter  we  have  psychologically  be 
lieved  with  sacrosanct  intensity  that  we  enjoy  en 
tire  political  equality  and  self-direction  such  as 
light  never  shined  on  in  space.  The  psychological 
consequence  has  been  somewhat  the  same  as  if  we 
had  possessed  these  boons.  We  have  built  up  an 
intellectual  certainty  of  our  right  to  have  them, 
from  which  it  is  very  probable  that  in  the  near 
day  we  shall  have  them. 

"Having  learned  that  representative  govern 
ment  and  our  political  system  are  not  self-gov 
ernment  we  meet  two  substratal  problems:  how  to 
secure  a  system  of  true  political  self -management, 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         233 

and  how  to  avoid  running  our  industries  into  the 
same  mould  that  has  misshaped  and  wrecked  our 
politics — a  mould  which  proved  to  be  monarch 
ical,  produced  a  political  abortion,  and  must  now 
be  revised.  The  system  of  self-directing  indus 
trial  groups,  their  units  owning  the  plants,  will 
realize  both  of  these  purposes.  The  federated 
action  of  the  groups,  in  team  with  the  modified 
State  representing  the  people  in  their  wholeness, 
will,  I  have  shown  you,  prevent  the  industrial 
partnerships  from  falling  into  rivalries;  individ 
ual  freedom  and  the  measureless  benefits  of  or 
ganization  are  combined  by  them ;  all  workers  and 
all  men  obtain  complete  enfranchisement;  there 
are  no  classes;  man  would  have  laid  off  the  com 
mercial  beast  and  taken  on  the  beauty  and  power 
of  humanity." 

Margaret  begged  the  professor  to  hand  forward 
the  book  that  had  supported  him,  that  she  might 
re-read  a  choice  passage. 

"Under  the  domination  of  the  capitalist  the 
worker  can  at  least  dream  of  becoming,  and  some 
times  does  become,  a  capitalist  in  his  turn.  What 
dream  could  he  indulge  in  under  the  anonymous 
and  brutally  despotic  tyranny  of  a  levelling  State 
which  should  foresee  all  his  needs  and  direct  his 
will?" 

"What  an  offer!    What  an  impertinence  to  the 


234        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

empire  of  toil !  But  as  one  of  the  unevictable  own 
ers  of  the  world  the  worker  would  not  have  to 
starve  on  dreams.  What  a  sea  of  pathos  in  those 
words — 'the  worker  can  at  least  dream  of  becom 
ing  a  capitalist  in  his  turn;  and  sometimes  does 
become  one!'  How  often?  How  many  of  them 
become  such !  Do  you  imagine  that  men  can  live 
forever  on  fraudulent  dreams?  And  capitalism,  by 
the  swift  solidifying  of  its  organization,  is  shat 
tering  the  frail  substance  of  that  simple  dream. 
Less  and  less  can  the  rare  workingman  break  his 
way  through  the  bastions  of  capital.  This  stern 
fact  is  wringing  rueful  admission  from  capitalists' 
own  apostles.  One  of  them  says:* 

"  'Persons  of  exceptional  ability  are  still  able 
to  force  their  way  to  the  highest  rungs  on  the 
social  ladder,  but  those  with  ordinary  attainments 
and  abilities  can  hardly  hope  ever  to  advance  to 
the  grade  above  them.  There  are  larger  and 
larger  numbers  of  people  who  feel  that  they  have 
never  had  a  chance  of  improving  their  position, 
and  who  resent  the  institutions  of  society  which 
have  condemned  them  and  so  many  of  their  fel 
lows  to  a  life  of  drudgery.' 

"But  what  have  you  to  offer  the  myriad  work- 
ingmen  to  compensate  for  limiting  their  chance  to 
rise  to  one  in  possibly  five  hundred  thousand  or  a 
*  Cunningham. 


The  Monarch   Billionaire.        235 

million?  This  economist  like  most  others  falls 
back  on  the  ruse  of  giving  them  heaven  in  reward 
for  their  earthly  drudgery,,  but  since  the  heaven- 
lure  in  its  original  form  is  worn  out  he  changes  its 
name  and  calls  his  motive  for  their  drudgery 
'character/  This  is  supposed  by  economists,  poli 
ticians,  theologians,  and  capitalists  to  be  heaven 
inside  of  you,  not  in  your  stomach  or  nerves  of 
feeling  but  in  your  soul,  a  safe  deposit  for  such 
things,  which  cannot  be  located.  'We  must  re 
member/  he  pleads,  'that  the  highest  development 
of  character  is  quite  compatible  with  accepting  a 
[low]  place  in  the  social  order  and  making  the 
most  of  it.  It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  limita 
tion  of  opportunity  .  .  .  must  necessarily  in 
volve  degradation/ 

"Now  this  is  what  was  told  the  slave.  He  could 
develop  his  character  as  well  in  slavery  as  in 
freedom.  What  more  could  he  want  than  devel 
opment  of  his  character?  Why  should  you  yearn 
for  freedom,  with  that  pearl  of  all  price  in  you, 
character?  for  freedom  was  nothing  .compared 
with  character.  But  ask  the  white  man  if  he  will 
give  up  freedom  and  take  slave-character-develop 
ment  for  it.  Is  it  not  recognized  that  nothing  is 
worse  for  the  master  as  well  as  slave  than  the 
slave's  slavery?  that  the  talk  of  developing  char 
acter  outside  of  perfect  freedom  is  a  pompous  fie- 


236        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

tion  ?  Under  the  iron  capitalist  regime  approach 
ing  there  can  be  no  character  for  the  huge  cohorts 
of  workers,  for  not  a  man  of  them  will  be  free. 
Except  a  few  brilliant  accidents  they  will  all  die 
where  they  were  born,  having  drudged  all  their 
monotonous  lives.  Your  French  author  when  he 
said  'All  stimulus  being  destroyed,  no  one  would 
make  an  effort  to  ameliorate  or  to  escape  from  his 
position — it  would  be  slavery  of  the  gloomiest  kind, 
without  a  hope  of  enfranchisement/  was  accu 
rately  describing  monarchical  industry  as  it  is 
unfolding,  although  aspiring  to  be  its  apologist." 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        237 


CHAPTER  XX. 

A  PROFESSOR  of  Sociology  expressed  his  wish  to 
be  heard. 

"I  believe/'  said  he,  modestly,  "that  I  am  the 
first  who  has  scientifically  placed  the  rich  man  on 
his  proper  economic  pedestal.  I  boldly  admit  that 
nearly  all  private  wealth  of  the  rich  has  been  un 
earned  by  the  owners.  That  gives  me  a  title  to 
economic  fame,  for  although  we  all  know  it  well 
every  thinker  has  shuddered  at  the  dangers  of  al 
lowing  it  as  a  doctrine.  I  dared,  and  have  cleared 
the  rocks.  We  economists  are  like  doctors,  if  we 
blab  the  truth  we  should  lose  our  patients  and  what 
could  we  then  do  with  the  mysteries  of 
our  brains? — we  might  have  to  be  use 
ful  to  earn  our  daily  bread.  So  we  need 
to  fabricate  big  systems  of  nonsense  to  show 
the  spellbound  population  our  ability,  and  then, 
not  understanding  a  tenth  that  we  say,  nor 
understanding  it  ourselves,  when  we  let  out  a 
plain  simple  truth  now  and  then,  which  they  know 


238        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

to  be  true,  and  which  could  have  been  told  a  hun 
dred  times  better  without  a  confusion  system,  they 
shout  at  our  depth  and  hire  us  to  teach  their  boys 
our  fairy  tales  of  nonsense  philosophy.  They 
wouldn't  think  we  had  a  bit  of  sense  if  we  didn't 
bluff  them  with  a  circus  of  scholarly  nonsense. 
And  that  no  one  may  take  them  for  fools  for  be 
lieving  in  us  when  we  talk  pure  incomprehensible 
rot  which  they  want  to  believe  to  be  a  spouting 
geyser  of  sagacity,  they  put  body  guards  on  our 
names  of  ominous  detachments  of  letters,  Pro 
fessor  Doctor  A.  M.  Ph.D.  LL.D.,  which  have 
as  much  sense  as  our  quackery  systems,  which 
mean  nothing  to  them  or  anybody,  but  stupefy 
the  public  and  their  children  into  blithering 
respect  for  us.  We  earn  our  salaries  by  those  let 
ters.  They  defend  the  rich.  Dear  knows  what 
we  should  do  for  life  if  they  asked  us  for  anything 
clean  and  square.  It  isn't  in  us.  But  the  rich 
don't  pay  for  the  clean  and  square ;  if  you  want  to 
sell,  have  what  the  rich  want  to  buy.  Sell  your 
soul  for  your  stomach's  sake,  is  the  first  economic 
doctrine.  Stomachs  were  made  before  souls. 

"So  we  teach  our  soap-bubble  systems  of  non 
sense  to  youth  in  colleges  to  make  them  pass  with 
the  awe-stricken  public  for  profundities  like  our 
selves  when  they  defend  the  rich.  For  defending 
the  rich  is  the  great  gold  brick  of  which  the  glori- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         239 

ous  three-card-monte  sciences  of  Economy  and  So 
ciology  travail  and  toil,  steam  and  smoke  and 
howl,,  to  deliver  themselves. 

"I  bare  my  soul  fearlessly  because  I  find  that 
our  heavy  respectabilities  trust  me  more  naturally 
when  I  confess  that  I  am  a  fraud. 

"Now  from  time  to  time  we  have  to  shift  our 
economic  station  and  burn  new  Bengal  lights  of 
intelligence  to  blind  popular  insight.  I  have  done 
this  in  my  new  work.  We  are  driven  by  the  dan 
gerous  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  masses  to  aban 
don  the  soft  old  feather-bed  postulate  that  the  rich 
earn  their  wealth.  That,  permit  me  to  observe,  is 
gas.  And  now  as  rich  men's  economic  attorneys, 
we're  called  on  for  brand-new  reasons,  with  the 
trade-mark  of  God  and  Nature  on  them,  why  the 
earners  of  nothing  are  entitled  to  relatively  every 
thing.  You  might  suppose  that  would  'phase' 
e-ven  a  thinker.  But  you  can't  rattle  the  econo 
mists  when  a  job  is  in  sight.  They  can  think  out 
anything,  easiest  of  all  they  can  think  the  working 
class  out  of  a  living.  They  get  a  better  one  them 
selves  for  doing  it,  and  that's  why  they  do  it.  I'm 
one  and  know. 

"Well,  we  not  only  can  show  the  masses  that 
they  cannot  have  what  they  earn,  but  like  king- 
magicians  we  show  them  that  it  is  better  for  them 
not  to  have  what  they  earn.  But  wait,  we'll  amaze 


240        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

your  dreams :  we'll  establish  the  eye-blistering  par 
adox  that  the  rich  in  a  way  create  the  riches  they 
do  not  create.*  It  is  easy  for  thinkers  to  set  up 
and  tear  down  nature's  axioms.  The  rich  create 
riches  which  they  do  not  create  by  their  use  of  the 
riches  other  people  create.  Now  it  is  done  and  Po 
litical  Economy  has  weathered  the  Horn.  Now  let 
us  get  down  to  thinking  and  I  will  prove  myths  in 
detail." 

The  professor  loosened  his  cravat,  asked  for  a 
glass  of  water  and  proceeded. 

"First,  I  will  name  the  sources  of  private  wealth 
to  show  that  the  rich  never  earned  what  they  have. 
The  sword,  slaves,  use  of  political  power,  special 
legislation,  grab  bills,  bought  bills.  These  are 
numerous  in  Albany  and  scarce  nowhere.  This  is 
the  get-rich-quick  specialty  of  'first  citizens.' 
Tariffs.  Foreign  trade  with  uncivilized  peoples, 
exploiting  them.  Civilizing  the  uncivilized  [Phil 
ippines].  Monopolized  inventions,  usually  by  a 
capitalist,  not  the  inventor.  Differential  gains,  al 
ways  unfair.  Monopolies.  Scarcities,  by  which 
the  people  are  robbed.  Discoveries  of  nature's 
gifts  to  all  (minerals,  land)  and  private  seizure 
of  them.  Successful  gambling,  stock  speculating, 
corners.  Immense  charges  for  personal  services, 
never  earned.  Fraud  of  all  kinds;  adulteration. 

*  Devas. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         241 

Extortion.  Wrecking  great  properties.  Watering 
stock,  forcing  the  public  to  pay  dividends  on  non 
existent  capital.  Consolidations — watering  the 
labor  saved  into  new  fictitious  capital  on  paper. 
Wage  exploitation,  that  is,  payment  of  a  wage  less 
than  the  sum  the  workers  create.  Unearned  in 
crease  of  land  'values.  Interest.  Rent.  Unjust 
use  of  power  over  judges,  courts  and  laws. 

"In  fact  the  rich  have  all  become  so  by  system 
atic  confiscation  from  the  workers.  We  do  not  give 
the  laborer  all  the  product  of  his  industry  by  a 
long  stretch  and  we  do  not  intend  to.  As  that  fa 
mous  Austrian  savant,  Dr.  Menger,  audaciously 
confesses :  'The  legally  recognized  existence  of 
unearned  income  proves  in  itself  that  our  law  of 
property  does  not  even  aim  at  obtaining  for  the 
laborer  the  whole  product  of  his  industry/  And 
he  explains:  'The  owner's  title  to  unearned  in 
come  is  founded.,  not  in  economic  conditions,  but 
in  a  positive  legal  enactment,  and  it  is  peculiarly 
important  in  the  case  of  such  property  that  his 
title  should  be  supported  by  corresponding  effect 
ual  power/ 

"The  learned  Doctor  is,  however,  amazingly 
careless  and  even  censurably  reckless  to  publicly 
found  the  right  of  unearned  property  on  law  and 
force.  What  is  that  but  telling  the  workers  there  is 
no  right  whatever  but  might  ?  He  tells  the  work- 


242         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ers  that  through  all  the  ages  their  property  has 
been  taken  from  them  by  those  with  'effectual 
power/  That  means  robbed  by  chicanery  backed 
by  force,  for  of  course  if  you  have  no  right  to  a 
thing  but  make  a  law  saying  you  have  a  right  to 
it,  that  is  chicanery;  and  since  force  is  the  only 
agency  that  makes  a  chicanery  law  valid,  the  sole 
basis  of  the  unearned  riches  of  the  rich  in  all  the 
ages  has  been  Force.  Menger  makes  the  right  of 
the  rich  to  rob  the  creators  of  their  wealth  rest 
upon  pure  Might.  But  this  is  a  very  dynamite 
doctrine,  for  the  toilers  now  have  the  Might. 

"Menger  assures  the  rich  that  law  and  force  con 
fer  right  to  take  unearned  property  from  its  cre 
ators:  but  how  much  more  then  do  they  give  the 
right  to  its  creators  and  earners  to  take  the  prop 
erty  non-earners  have  taken  from  them  back !  Sup 
pose  law  and  force  give  men  a  moral  right  to  hold 
their  robbings:  the  robbed  have  but  to  pass  laws 
and  put  forth  force  to  retake  and  morally  own 
their  own.  This  reasoning  is  clinching;  the  work 
ers  are  entitled  to  exercise  the  methods  of  their 
fleecers  to  reverse  the  situation  in  their  favor. 
Menger  should  be  adjudged  insane  for  telling  the 
truth.  A  religious  flyer  on  his  doctrine  was  needed 
to  make  a  good  sane  lie  of  it.  He  should  have 
rested  the  owner's  right  on  Eeligion  as  I  do,  which 
quiets  and  appeases  the  nether  masses  and  teaches 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         243 

them  that  force  can  only  be  used  with  divine  pro 
priety  by  those  whose  riches  entitle  them  to  the 
blessings  of  the  Lord.  I  tremble  to  think  of  the 
incendiary  consequences  of  Menger's  bravado. 

"Since  we  are  now  obliged  by  popular  discovery 
of  facts  to  admit  that  the  great  fortunes  have  al 
ways  been  great  grabs,  made  and  sustained  by  con 
fiscation,  how  are  we  to  re-reconcile  private  con 
fiscated  riches  to  the  great  laws  of  Right  which 
we  must  manufacture  in  our  brains  to  awe  the 
people  ?  I  have  laid  the  correct  foundations  in  my 
work  on  'The  Justice  of  Confiscation.'  I  show 
that  Increase  of  Population,  Art,  the  Glory  of  the 
State,  and  Eeligion,  are  the  bulwarks  and  right 
eousness  of  confiscation.  Turn  to  the  Civilized 
Theory  of  Servant  and  Master  on  page  four  hun 
dred  and  eighty-three.*  There  I  say: 

"'The  relation  of  master  and  servant  must  be 
well  understood  if  we  are  to  understand  the  signifi 
cance  of  accumulated  property  in  civilized  coun 
tries.  For  such  property  implies  rights  not  only 
over  things  "but  also  over  persons.  But  these  rights 
would  be  an  idle  name  unless  conferring  an  advan 
tage  on  tlie  holder;  whence  it  is  obvious,  as  al 
ready  stated,  that  the  person  over  whom  the  prop 
erty-owner  has  rights,  must  yield  if  he  be  an  in 
dustrial  servant,  a  surplus  product*  and  that  this 

*  Devas. 


244        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

surplus  constitutes  for  the  master  an  unearned 
income/ 

"Old  Dr.  Johnson  rejected  as  a  fantastic  opinion 
the  idea  that  inequality  should  be  abolished  and 
none  should  domineer  over  another.  'Mankind  are 
happier  in  a  state  of  inequality  and  subordina 
tion/  says  that  autocrat  of  intelligence.  The  dom 
ineering  and  the  domineered  rejoice  in  the  situa 
tion.  It  calls  out  very  blessed  virtues  on  both 
sides.  When  the  workers  understand  the  four 
reasons  for  inequality  and  the  right  of  the  few  to 
confiscate  their  labor,  they  will  be  the  warmest  sup 
porters  of  the  rights  of  being  confiscated  from  and 
of  being  domineered  over.  Attend  now  to  these 
reasons. 

"I.  'Industrial  organization  requires  inequality. 
For  with  men  as  they  are,  the  eagerness  to  make  a 
fortune  and  live  in  ease  and  abundance  is  a  needed 
spur  to  concerted  labor,  elaborate  production,  im 
provements,  and  inventions.  Without  this  motive 
the  increase  of  population  and  corresponding  sub 
jugation  of  the  earth  would  be  hindered/  " 

"Let  me  answer  one  argument  at  a  time,"  re 
quested  Margaret.  "Have  you  anything  to  add?" 

"I  might  add  that  the  rich  are  of  great  value  to 
the  poor  by  devoting  a  part  of  the  surplus  which 
they  confiscate  to  their  welfare.  Thus  in  a  sense 
the  rich  really  earn  their  confiscated  income  by 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         245 

giving  part  of  it  back  to  the  poor  from  whom  they 
take  it." 

"Is  that  an  original  argument  with  you  ?"  asked 
Margaret. 

"Yes,  on  page  four  ninety-six  of  my  book." 

"Pray  go  on,  Professor,  you  improve  your  case 
every  time  you  speak." 

The  learned  scholar  continued :  "I  will  state  an 
other  important  discovery  of  mine.  There  must 
be  a  surplus  indeed,  or  there  could  be  no  rich  peo 
ple;  and  in  this  sense  the  poor  support  the  rich. 
But  precisely  the  prospect  of  being  a  recipient  of 
the  surplus  is  the  ground  of  much  of  the  industrial 
energy,  skill  and  proficiency  which  renders  a  sur 
plus  possible;  and  in  that  sense  the  rich  support 
the  poor.  That  is  to  say,  the  poor  who  create  all 
the  wealth  are  stimulated  to  do  so  and  to  increase 
the  surplus  wealth  by  the  knowledge  that  it  is  to  be 
mostly  taken  from  them  by  the  idle.  In  this  way 
the  rich  certainly  earn  their  incomes  by  inciting 
the  poor  to  work  harder  through  the  knowledge 
that  if  they  do  not  all  will  be  taken  from  them  and 
they  will  have  nothing.  Put  as  a  law,  The  cer 
tainty  of  the  poor  that  the  product  of  their  toil  will 
be  confiscated  is  the  incentive  which  causes  them  to 
produce  a  surplus  to  be  confiscated.  From  which 
it  is  demonstrated  that  the  poor  would  be  worse 


246        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

off  without  the  rich  because  they  would  work  much 
less  and  have  much  more." 

"Professor,"  said  Margaret,  dazed  hy  the  bewil 
dering  logic  of  the  recondite  collegian  she  had  lis 
tened  to,  "the  eagerness  to  make  a  fortune  and 
live  in  ease  does  not  spur  the  idle  upper  class  to 
actually  work  creatively  and  produce  wealth,  but 
rather  to  scrape  about  for  a  scheme  to  get  a  surplus 
income  from  the  real  toilers  without  working  for 
it.  That  is  not  work,  it  is  cultured  crookedness ; 
the  prize  you  bait  men  with  incites  to  gentlemanly 
confiscation,  not  usefulness.  And  it  is  not  the 
hope  of  making  a  fortune  that  causes  the  poor  to 
labor  so  terribly,  for  they  have  no  such  hope,  the 
countless  mass  of  them  know  infallibly  that  they 
cannot  do  it — and  yet  they  work.  This  refutes 
you.  Men  will  work  without  the  bribe  of  a  for 
tune.  They  will  give  out  all  that  is  in  them  in 
toil  without  the  cowardly  anticipation  of  stealing 
from  the  toil  of  others.  For  I  know  of  nothing  so 
cowardly  withal  as  the  capitalist's  basis  of  life. 
Yes,  these  workers  toil  strenuously  and  fiercely 
without  the  slightest  expectation  of  anything  but 
existence  for  it.  And  if  you  added  to  their  hope  of 
existence  the  certainty  of  having  all  they  produce 
instead  of  the  certainty  of  being  robbed  of  the  bulk 
of  it,  they  would,  it  is  self-evident,  work  more  in 
telligently  and  ably,  and  society  would  be  richer 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         247 

than  now  by  all  that  increase,  in  place  of  poorer. 
If  you  also  coerced  the  drone  surplus-receivers  to- 
actual  work,  to  earn  instead  of  stealing,  there 
would  be  still  more  riches  and  still  more  incentive. 

"It  is  needless  for  me  to  prove  the  worthless- 
ness  of  a  population  of  drudges,  or  of  subjugating 
the  earth  to  give  the  few  masters  a  larger  crop  of 
domineered  and  pauperized  labor  from  which  to 
extort  their  fabulous  waste.  Who  but  an  econo 
mist  would  dare  set  the  luxuries  of  a  small  box 
ful  of  financial  .sheiks  against  the  weal  of  an  en 
tire  world  ?  You  will  have  to  try  another  defense 
of  inequality." 

The  professor  now  read  his  second  argument. 

"II.  The  development  of  science,  beautiful  lit 
erature,  music  and  arts,  requires  an  upper  class 
provided  with  leisure  and  servants;  and  therefore 
requires  inequality;  and  therefore  inequality  is 
necessary  to  man's  welfare/' 

"Science,  music,  literature,  and  arts/7  said  Mar 
garet,  "are  not  goods  in  and  for  themselves,  they 
are  only  so  for  people.  For  those  whom  they  do 
not  reach  they  are  not  blessings,  they  do  not  even 
exist.  The  poor,  the  most  of  the  population,  are 
prisoned  away  from  these  delights,  which  for 
them  are  nothing  in  every  sense.  Is  the  growth  of 
these  matters  which  do  not  touch  them  of  the 
faintest  consequence  to  them  ?  Shall  they  and  their 


248         The   Monarch   Billionaire. 

off-births  down  the  ages  groan  on  to  produce  va 
cant  abstractions  which  might  be  in  Mars  for 
them,,  and  are  only  realities  and  luxuries  for  oth 
ers?  To  do  so  assumes  those  abstractions  to  be  a 
good  apart  from  people — a  limpid  absurdity — or 
that  their  engrossers  attain  through  them  an  in 
trinsic  worth  warranting  the  self-erasure  of  the 
masses.  Do  science,  literature  and  art  result  so 
gloriously  in  the  characters  of  these  monopolists 
that  most  of  mankind  are  right  in  reducing  them 
selves  to  mere  fertilizers  of  the  soil  for  these  illus 
trious  elect  to  flourish  in? 

"No  such  resultant  bloom  greets  us  in  the  per 
sonalities  of  the  art  and  science-favored.  Art, 
science,  and  literature  are  not  for  them  objects  of 
high  and  generous  pursuit,  inspiring  great  and  in 
telligent  lives,  but  means  of  selfish  gratification,  a 
sordid  exclusive  luxury;  or,  with  their  anointed 
apostles  and  producers,  the  bread  and  luxury  gain 
ing  trade.  We  do  not  find  scientists,  artists,  mu 
sicians  or  the  literary  caste  possessed  of  large 
hearts  or  noble  mental  vision;  their  thoughts  of 
justice  and  humanity  are  as  petty  and  pusillani 
mous  as  those  of  the  commerical  mob;  their 
psychic  delicacy  and  responsiveness  are  too  slight 
to  be  moved  to  devotion  to  the  high  rights  and 
possibilities  of  the  human  race.  Heavily  and  dully 
they  take  society  as  fixed  and  abide  its  wrongs  with 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         249 

artistic  content ;  if  prodded  they  flute  the  nursery 
sageness — We  must  accept  the  order  of  nature. 
The  roue  cynic  scientist  is  the  unholiest  attribute 
of  the  All-Deity.  The  order  of  nature  is  the  order 
of  those  who  order  their  pictures,  music,  or  books, 
or  who  lift  them  into  the  precious  peace  and  com 
petence  of  a  laboratory.  The  buyers  of  art,  its 
rich  second-hand  enjoyers,  make  it  a  ray  in  the 
headlight  of  their  billionairy  triumph,  which  tes 
tifies  itself  to  man  by  display. 

"These  are  the  princely  qualities  that  are  fer 
tilized  by  the  self -destroying  drudgery  of  the  hu 
man  drove. 

"And  what  other  should  we  expect  of  the  art  and 
science  owning  classes?  They  fail  in  the  funda 
mental  test  put  to  them  as  human  beings :  they  are 
willing  to  receive  art  and  all  thinkable  enjoyment 
from  others  as  a  gift ;  they  accept  it  as  pensioners 
from  the  masses,  making  no  return ;  they  are  pau 
pers  to  the  toiling  people,  who  donate  them  sup 
port  and  pleasure,  as  parents  do  spoiled  and  sloth 
ful  children — for  nothing.  They  naturally  reach 
out  for  all  they  can  get,  as  spongy  beneficiaries 
ever  do.  They  come  to  think  their  idleness  and 
uselessness  a  pillar  of  mankind.  Art  would  not  be 
produced  if  it  were  not  done  for  us,  they  argue, 
and  see  how  necessary  art  is.  The  world  would 
hardly  be  the  world  without  it.  But  necessary  for 


250         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

what  ?  for  whom  ?  To  give  these  unnecessary  per 
sons  a  few  more  savory  sensations. 

"Can  anything  very  distinguished  in  'value 
germinate  from  people  who  accept  this  false  and 
detestable  position?  If  they  were  sound  they 
would  determine  to  pay  for  what  they  have,  to 
pay  their  debts.  They  would  see  that  those  who 
furnish  them  livelihood  and  the  substance  to  pur 
chase  science  and  art,  should  receive  equivalent  in 
return — that  is  they  would  earn  their  own  living 
and  not  filch  it  as  an  unearned  income  secured  to 
them  safely  by  law  and  force. 

"But  as  they  shirk  this  and  gladly  embrace  the 
post  of  social  paupers  they  may  be  trusted  to  be 
have  in  other  respects  as  paupers  and  only  to  de 
velop  pauper  virtues.  Little  that  is  good  can  come 
from  a  mob  so  low  in  the  scale  of  intelligence  as 
not  even  to  see  the  universal  injury  of  draining 
the  lives  of  others.  Art,  science,  literature,  music, 
can  make  nothing  valuable  of  such.  Neither  do 
they.  And  these  charity-receivers,  'cultured'  at 
the  cost  of  the  poor,  can  make  nothing  valuable  of 
themselves  without  first  canceling  their  funda 
mental  sin,  and  paying  for  their  existence. 

"Would  you  know  the  moral  grade  to  which 
many  of  our  artists  sink  under  the  patronage  of 
these  unearned-income  takers,  look  to  what  uses 
they  abase  their  talents.  Because  there  is  so  slight 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         251 

encouragement  to  growing  art  from  the  monarch s 
of  the  purse,  just  for  the  necessaries  of  life  some 
are  consuming  their  genius  manufacturing  hideous 
corrupting  cartoons  in  ink  and  paint  for  the  de 
filement  of  the  nation  through  the  Sunday  press. 
Good  men  would  starve  first.  Why  this  rolling  in 
the  mire  ?  Because  art  is  for  the  few  and  is  not  for 
the  people.  Wealth  being  stored  in  the  big  bags 
of  the  few,,  the  many  cannot  buy  or  further  art. 
If  they  could,  they  would  not  be  paying  immortal 
ity  figures  for  dead  men's  work  but  would  be  pur 
chasing  the  products  of  the  living,  helping  them  to 
live,  not  at  stupid  exorbitant  prices  but  at  fair 
ones  that  would  give  the  artists  security  and  free 
dom  to  evolve  the  true  art  in  them.  And  the 
masses  of  art  enjoyers,  the  people,  would  then  de 
velop  a  true  sense  and  taste  for  art,  such  as  the 
present  surface-display  classes  never  do.  Which 
of  the  methods  is  better  for  the  blooming  and 
splendor  of  art,  music,  literature,  and  science — for 
the  same  reasoning  is  true  of  them  all  ? 

"But  I  say  again,  the  apostles  of  these  things 
are  chiefly  blameworthy,  for  having  been  blessed 
with  peculiar  opportunities  of  intelligence  they 
neglect  liberty,  justice,  and  equality,  through 
which  alone  all  the  high  pursuits  thrive,  and  like 
serfs  and  lackeys  sell  themselves  to  cater  to  the 
purse-proud,  receiving  starvation,  or  soup  and 
contempt." 


252         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 


CHAPTEE  XXI. 

THE  professor  did  not  deign  an  answer,  but 
read  his  third  argument  to  establish  the  righteous 
ness  of  unearned  incomes  and  inequality. 

"III.  It  is  impossible  without  accumulated 
riches  and  great  inequality  of  incomes  to  attain 
any  great  development  of  political  life ;  nor  could 
any  one  exult  in  the  possession  of  a  noble  father 
land,  or  the  citizenship  of  a  great  empire.  In 
truth,  the  mighty  fabric  of  an  imperial  State  is 
no  mere  aggregate  of  equal  parts  or  of  equal  part 
ners,  but  implies  inequality  of  parts,  and  subordi 
nation  as  the  requisite  of  order." 

Margaret  once  more  restrained  her  amazement 
at  the  good  man's  naive  apology  and  said  : 

"There  was  notable  evenness  of  fortunes  and  of 
social  equality  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  in  this 
country,  and  the  state  survived  and  waxed  great. 
What  now  threatens  its  subversion  and  violent 
overthrow  is  inequality,  the  congestion  of  wealth 
in  the  plethoric  veins  of  some  and  inanition  every 
where  else. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         253 

"Our  Commercial  Bureau  figures  the  worth  of 
our  internal  commerce,  the  wealth  we  produce  for 
exchange  annually,  at  twenty  billion  dollars.  In 
1850  it  was  only  two  billion,  now  ten  times  greater. 
The  population  is  but  3-J-  times  more  than  then, 
the  wealth  having  multiplied  three  times  faster 
than  the  population.  Had  wealth  remained  as 
equitably  spread  as  even  in  1850  all  would  be  at 
least  three  times  better  off  than  they  were  at  that 
time. 

"But  we  did  not  then  have  our  Czars  of  Produc 
tion.  Now  an  Oil  Czar  lifts  the  price  $1.47  a  bar 
rel  to  profit  by  the  coal  strike,  and  in  five  months 
transfers  six  million  dollars  from  the  people's 
pockets  to  his  own.  Each  King  of  a  Product  does 
likewise.  The  millions  are  pauperized  and  the 
Czars  bulge  into  multi-billionaires.  The  halcyon 
days  before  1850  are  already  enshrined  as  the 
golden  memory  of  a  mystic  regime  of  mankind. 

"What  ha've  the  depleted  'citizens'  to  be  proud 
of  in  such  a  State  ?  What  is  the  State  become  but 
the  Force  that  protects  their  depleters,  the  police 
agency  that  executes  their  eviction?  Such  a 
state  is  no  friend  of  the  many,  but  is  the  mercenary 
guard  that  holds  the  rifle  over  them  in  its  paid 
office  of  awing  them  to  submit  to  their  naught- 
earning,  all-seizing  plunderers.  The  people  are 
like  -convicts  sentenced  by  an  industrial  autocracy. 


254        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

Do  you  fancy  they  will  be  proud  of  their  overseers  ? 
and  cheer  for  their  overseers'  flag?  Would  you 
have  asked  the  negro  slaves  to  be  proud  of  the 
United  States  Government  which  chased  them 
back  into  bondage?  Are  the  political  prisoners, 
deported  by  Russian  State  Majesty  to  Siberia  for 
asking  their  rights,  proud  of  the  Russian  State? 
The  State  is  everywhere  the  monster  machine  for 
guaranteeing  the  incomes  to  those  who  do  not 
earn  them,  and  for  branding  and  condemning  as 
criminals  those  who  attempt  to  maintain  their 
own/' 

"Patriotism  is  a  virtue  you  don't  seem  to  have," 
remarked  the  professor  ironically. 

"Do  you  pretend  that  these  State-disrupters  and 
people's-wealth  monopolists  are  patriots?"  de 
manded  Margaret.  "They  have  patriotism  for 
the  state  machine,  as  long  as  it  is  their  private 
sheriff  to  supply  force  to  back  their  raids  on  the 
incomes  of  the  people.  Should  the  state  be  just, 
their  patriotism  would  turn  to  gnashing  rage. 

"I  am  patriotic  for  a  state  that  exists  for  Equal 
ity,  and  a  World-State  where  all  who  work  shall  be 
brothers  and  they  who  will  not  work  shall  be 
quarantined  as  defectives,  for  reform." 

"A  world  I  could  not  possibly  enjoy,  nor  any 
cultured  man,"  drawled  the  scholar  with  disgust. 
"But  now  I  come  to  my  grand  argument,  the  im- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        255 

pregnable  defenses  of  a  drone  class,  Morality  and 
Religion.  How  great  a  thing  is  Religion !  How 
many  slaves  has  it  not  delivered  from  tempta 
tion  by  delivering  them  to  the  hangman ! 

"IV.  Although  without  inequality  many  virtues 
can  be  practised,  yet  a  multitude  of  others  re 
quire  inequality  for  their  existence,  reverence,  obe 
dience,  innumerable  deeds  of  kindness,  generosity, 
self-denial,  and  submission  to  the  dispositions  of 
Providence ;  all  of  them  virtues  of  singular  fitness 
for  man  on  earth ;  where,  as  natural  theology  and 
ethics  teach  us,  the  immediate  end  of  man  is  pre 
cisely  the  exercise  of  virtues. 

"Christianity  adds  to  these  reasons  its  own  pe 
culiar  arguments  on  the  dignity  and  blessings  of 
poverty.  By  equalizing  all  men,  rich  and  poor,  as 
partakers  of  the  same  religious  mysteries,  it 
teaches  them  to  regard  inequalities  of  wealth  and 
power  as  minor  matters/' 

The  wise  man  was  not  laughing,  he  was  reading 
from  a  book  which  he*  had  seriously  composed  to 
prove  that  while  the  rich  do  not  earn  their  wealth 
they  are  yet  entitled  to  it ;  and  Margaret  did  not 
laugh  at  him. 

"You  would  trade  the  religious  mysteries  off 
against  bread  and  butter,  education,  health,  leis 
ure,  liberty,  the  right  of  bloom  and  happiness  in 

*  Devas. 


256        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

this  world,  against  everything  but  drudgery — you 
would  leave  the  people  drudgery,  and  religious 
mysteries/'  she  said  with  scorn  in  her  voice. 
"And  to  the  rich  you  give  all  these  good  things, 
and  the  religious  mysteries  besides.  Strange  peo 
ple  they  are,  hardly  human  one  would  say,  who 
would  let  you  parcel  out  the  things  of  life  for 
them  like  that!  The  masses  can  have  their  share 
of  all  the  good  things  and  the  mysteries  as  well, 
when  they  want  them. 

"You  helaud  the  virtues  of  inequality :  there  are 
none.  They  are  called  so  by  masters,  because 
from  their  point  of  view  obedience,  servility,  and 
the  reverent  attitude  of  the  slave,  dependent,  or 
hired  server,  are  his  best  qualifications — hence  are 
given  whole  chapters  in  .the  ethic  books  as  virtues. 
Not  a  whit  of  virtue  have  they.  In  free  people  they 
are  vices.  The  equal  and  free  co-operate;  they 
name  a  foreman  and  take  his  advice — not  his  or 
ders — not  as  a  superior  but  as  a  specialist  in  one 
range  of  action,  while  in  some  other  respects  each 
of  them  has  his  own  superiority.  Wherever  there 
is  obedience  from  a  sense  of  subordination  and  in 
feriority  it  shows  the  absence  and  not  the  presence 
of  virtue.  In  a  community  of  the  intelligent  the 
demand  for  obedience  suggesting  inequality  would 
be  an  insult. 

"Political    and    social    degeneration    invariably 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        257 

appear  when  respect  is  given  to  office,  implying  the 
elevation  of  its  occupant.  This  is  one  of  the  base 
remnants  of  monarchy  still  prevalent  in  our  re 
public.  Yet  no  one  in  any  office  is  actually  ele 
vated  one  small  inch  by  it,  nor  is  there  such  a 
thing  as  greatness  derived  from  place.  There  is 
advertisement,  which  is  the  whole  substance  of 
most  modern  greatness.  Push,  not  quality,  brings 
men  to  the  hammer  of  the  gong  and  they  ring 
ou^  their  names  and  are  'great/  The  proclivity  to 
worship  place — the  blather  of  the  gong — and  its 
holders,  was  drubbed  into  pitiful  mankind  by  mas 
ter  rulers;  those  who  now  discover  this  sneaking 
instinct  in  their  hearts  should  suppress  it  with 
shame  and  tear  it  out. 

"Much  reverence  is  sheer  stupidity.  If  not  the 
callowness  of  unripe  age  or  the  whipped  homage  of 
fear,  it  is  failure  to  see  far  into  the  reverenced 
character.  The  Virtue5  of  it  is  weakness  of  pene 
tration,  which  the  reverenced  object  likes  very 
much;  he  prays  for  deliverance  from  being  seen 
through;  for  woe  to  reverence  for  him  if  he  is 
understood.  Is  it  virtuous  to  feel  abased  before 
attributes  invented  in  another  ]by  our  obtuseness? 
Something  infinitely  transcending  reverence  is 
love,  and  love  is  the  flower  of  equality.  Love  does 
not  grovel.  It  would  be  torture  to  the  loved  to  seo 
it  grovel. 


258        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

"The  reality  is  that  all  sound  virtues  accredited 
to  inequality  spring  from  difference  of  faculties 
and  accomplishments.  Variety  is  confounded  with 
inequality.  Men  will  never  be  the  same,  were  they 
so  it  would  be  a  woeful  world ;  yet  that  is  not  say 
ing  they  will  not  be  equal,  in  a  glorious  world. 
They  are  complements  one  of  another  with  their 
varying  abilities,  furnishing  out  humanity  in  its 
rich  diversification.  And  this  truth  solves  the 
problem  of  inequality.  The  immense  imaginary 
superiorities  sink  into  differences,  the  possessors 
of  variant  qualifications  are  equal. 

"The  theory  of  needful  inequality  is  born  of  the 
ethic  of  the  spoiler  toward  the  spoiled.  The  spoli 
ator  looks  for  a  moral  reason  for  his  crimes  and 
pounces  greedily  upon  the  divergent  powers  of 
men  as  nature's  witness  of  intended  superiority  and 
baseness.  Thus  theory-mailed  he  sallies  forth  to 
despoil  men  of  everything  he  can  take  if  they  are 
not  athletes  in  his  kind  of  superiority — the  fin 
ished  faculty  to  gouge.  Eating  superior  those  who 
have  the  keenest  artistry  in  filching  property  from 
others  is  man's  highest  stool  of  imbecility.  All 
the  shafts  against  equality  are  turned  aside  by 
the  humbug  of  this  measurement.  The  rarest 
genius,  the  finest  soul,  the  noblest  character,  the 
truest  server,  is  low  compared  with  this  high  fac 
ulty  of  piracy,  getting  without  earning.  But  thi? 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         259 

very  fact  reduces  the  claim  of  our  getters  to  an  ab 
surdity.  Estimated  with  sense  it  is  a  brutish  abil 
ity,  despicable  instead  of  commendable,,  whose 
exercisers  ought  to  be  rather  imbranded  as  -villains 
than  as  society's  precious  high  gods. 

"All  the  virtues  of  service,  kindness  and  love 
are  possible  among  equals.  In  a  neighborhood  of 
farmers  virtually  equal  in  means  there  is  plentiful 
need  of  generous  helpfulness.  If  they  have  these 
virtues  they  exchange  work  and  when  one  suffers 
unusual  loss  by  fire  or  accident  combine  to  help 
him  repair  it.  If  they  were  unequal,  they  could 
not  do  more  unless  they  lifted  the  lesser  one  up 
and  made  him  their  equal,  thus  closing  for  them 
selves  the  opportunity  to  do  more  for  the  future. 
How  morally  different  is  this  help  of  equals  from 
the  condescending  and  injurious  dole  of  some  rich 
man,  who,  receiving  all  his  ownings  from  depend 
ents,  returns  them  when  destitute  a  niggardly  bit 
out  of  their  own !" 

The  professor  complacently  turned  the  pages 
of  his  book.  "You  are  not  a  scientific  thinker/' 
he  observed,  with  a  gracious  beam  of  perfection, 
"and  unless  ideas  are  scientifically  arranged  none 
of  them  can  be  true.  Unless  a  man  has  written 
a  scientific  work,  I  am  always  amused  at  him.  I 
cover  all  ground  and  put  everything  in  its  place. 
For  example,  I  quote  from  Goethe,  whose  wood- 


260         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

cutters  in  "Faust"  say  plainly:  'But  for  us  rude 
folk  working  in  the  land,  you  fine  folk  would  fail 
utterly  for  all  your  wits,  and  would  freeze  unless 
we  sweated/  And  from  the  majestic  Gibbon,  who 
marked  as  obvious  how  'in  each  successive  revolu 
tion  the  patient  herd  becomes  the  property  of  its 
new  masters;  and  the  salutary  compact  of  food 
and  labor  is  silently  ratified  by  their  mutual 
necessities/  And  from  Kenan,  who  wrote:  'The 
bulk  of  humanity  lives  by  proxy,  .  .  .  millions 
live  and  die  in  order  to  produce  a  rare  elite;  the 
masses  do  not  count,  are  a  mere  bulk  of  raw 
material,  out  of  which,  drop  by  drop,  the  essence 
is  extracted/  And  from  Adam  Smith,  the  father 
of  all  earthly  wisdom,  who  let  it  escape  him  that, 
except  in  new  colonies,  'rent  and  profit  eat  up 
wages,  and  the  two  superior  orders  of  people 
oppress  the  inferior  one/  Smith  was  the  father 
among  other  things,  of  Anarchy,  for  he  said: 
'Civil  government,  so  far  as  it  is  instituted  for 
the  security  of  property,  is  in  reality  instituted 
for  the  defense  of  the  rich  against  the  poor,  or 
of  those  who  ha've  some  property  against  those 
who  have  none  at  all/  He  was  right  about  this, 
but  he  was  wrong  in  saying  it.  The  truth  should 
seldom  be  told. 

"Malthus  showed   Smith  how  Providence  and 
JL :\   take  caro  cf  the  poor:  'A  man  who  is  born 


. 

l/N/Vf 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         261 

into  a  world  already  possessed,  if  he  cannot  get 
subsistence  from  his  parents  on  whom  he  has  a 
just  demand,  and  if  the  society  do  not  want  his 
labor,  has  no  claim  of  right  to  the  smallest  portion 
of  food,  and,  in  fact,  has  no  business  to  be  where 
he  is.  At  Nature's  mighty  feast  there  is  no 
vacant  cover  for  him.  She  tells  him  to  be  gone, 
and  will  quickly  execute  her  own  orders/  This 
is  the  deepest  truth  outside  of  the  Bible,  which 
is  rather  old  and  passe  economically. 

"How  is  the  state  of  the  world  depicted  by 
Goethe,  Gibbon;  Renan  and  Adam  Smith  to  be 
justified?  By  Charity.  Almsgiving  must  be 
abundant  in  proportion  to  inequality.  The  serv 
ing  class  must  be  allowed  to  have  a  family.  Some 
sips  of  the  beauties  of  literature  and  art  must  be 
granted.  There  must  be  food  and  clothing  for 
them,  housing  and  furniture,  at  least  such  as  a 
humane  slave-owner  would  provide  for  his  slave. 
(See  pages  498-499  of  my  book.) 

"You  must  not  lay  much  stress  on  the  iniquitous 
origin  of  fortunes.  The  eagerness  to  make  a  for 
tune  and  li've  in  ease,  though  not  in  itself  a  high 
motive,  can  be  elevated  by  the  eagerness  being 
for  the  advancement  and  ease,  not  of  oneself,  but 
of  one's  kindred;  and  grasping  ambition  can  be 
transmuted  into  family  affection.  Always  presup 
posing  the  Christian  view  to  be  right,  then  it  is 


262         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

no  argument  against  the  rich  to  show  the  badness 
of  particular  origins  of  riches,  not  even  if  we  prove 
a  whole  class  of  people  to  have  inherited  fortunes 
made  by  iniquities." 

"Thank  you,  Professor/'  said  Margaret,  "you 
have  made  a  noble  argument  for  my  cause.  You 
have  placed  the  workingman  on  the  level  of  the 
slave,  where  we  all  know  that  he  is;  you  have 
justified  atrocious  ambition  through  which  drop 
by  drop  the  essence  of  life  is  flailed  out  of  the 
masses,  by  having  the  greedy  extractor  give  the 
essence  of  ten  thousand  toilers  to  his  wife,  that 
gift  washes  the  black  and  blood  from  his  crime- 
stained  soul ;  and  if  we  believe  in  Christianity,  we 
shall  not  in  all  the  world,  when  the  many  are  fed 
into  the  hopper  and  ground  to  pulp  to  make  a 
bed  of  roses  for  the  sterile  few,  be  able  to  see 
enough  injustice  to  sting  us  to  proclaim  a  new 
order  of  life.  It  is  a  grand  recommendation  for 
Christianity." 

"But  I  must  ask  you  one  thing.  Paramount 
strength  is  with  the  patient  herd,  is  it  not,  nu 
merically,  politically  and  physically?  They  have 
the  weighty  power  of  votes,  they  make  the  platoons 
of  police,  and  in  all  armies  they  are  three-fourths 
and  more  of  the  privates.  Should  they  grow 
weary  of  having  their  essence  ground  out,  of 
being  the  chattel  property  of  masters  for  whom 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         263 

they  sweat  and  die  for  slaves'  pay  and  estima 
tion,  they  could  sweep  the  masters  off  like  fleas 
and  possess  themselves  of  all  things  in  their  own 
name — could  they  not?" 

"Er,  yes,  they  could,  nothing  could  prevent 
them.  But  they  have  a  conscience,  thank  Heaven, 
a  conscience  that  prevents  them — a  sense  of  equity, 
of  justice  even,  of  a  kind,  a  respect  for  God  and 
property,  a  knowledge  of  Nature's  great  law  that 
as  some  of  their  masters  were  placed  over  them 
by  previous  generations,  it  would  be  shamefully 
wronging  all  present  and  future  masters  to  heave 
them  off.  Masters  must  always  be  kept,  because 
the  original  wrong  cannot  be  righted  against  those 
who  did  it.  If  we  could  just  get  at  the  first  batch 
of  masters,  you  know,  in  the  year  minus  6,000 
or  so,  and  take  their  fleecings  back,  with  a  term 
in  jail — but  we  can't.  It  would  be  terribly  un 
merciful  to  attack  the  present  inheritors  of  their 
fleecings,  wouldn't  it,  now,  after  we  have  let  them 
enjoy  the  benefits  of  the  robbings  so  long?  They 
have  established  a  right  to  them  by  keeping  them 
faithfully  and  enjoying  them  constantly,  haven't 
they?  It  would  be  robbing  these  people  to  take 
away  what  they've  had  so  much  pleasure  out  of, 
although  it  was  never  theirs,  you  may  say.  In  con 
sideration  of  the  blunders  of  past  ages  and  the 
crimes  of  dead  people,  the  present  living  negligi- 


264        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

bles,  or  those  whose  ancestors  forgot  to  steal,  if 
you  will,  must  serve  the  descendants  of  those  who 
were  alive  to  their  opportunities  and  stole  every 
thing,  as  long  as  we  have  a  world.  It's  their 
duty,  and  I  don't  know  anything  grander  than 
duty.  The  harder  it  hits  a  poor  man  the  grander 
it  seems  to  the  rich  man. 

"However,  as  Adam  Smith  shrewdly  noticing 
that  'servants,  laborers  and  workmen  make  up  the 
far  greater  part  of  every  great  political  society/ 
declared,  it  is  but  equity  'that  they  who  feed,  cloths, 
and  lodge  the  whole  body  of  the  people  should 
have  such  a  share  of  the  produce  of  their  own 
labor  as  to  be  themselves  tolerably  well  fed, 
clothed  and  lodged.' " 

"Adam  Smith  was  'very  kind  to  his  supporters," 
Margaret  rejoined.  "It  is  like  giving  your  father 
and  mother  who  supply  you  with  a  fortune,  toler 
ably  good  food  and  clothes  out  of  it.  But  per 
haps  some  of  you  can  tell  me  about  the  right  of 
inheritance,  which  petrifies  and  perpetuates  injus 
tice  when  it  is  once  done." 

"I  can,"  said  a  scholar.*  "I  thought  that 
subject  would  be  up,  and  I  came  prepared.  Great 
doctrines  like  that  originate  back  in  Eome,  the 
hot-house  of  justice  and  just  laws.  The  beauti 
fully  complex  and  voluminous  system  of  Eoman 

*W.  E.  Ball. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         265 

Inheritance  depends  upon  a  remarkable  theory 
of  indissoluble  unity  between  the  heir  and  his 
ancestor.  Henry  Maine  has  traced  it  out  in  this 
wise:  'The  notion  was  that  though  the  physical 
person  of  the  deceased  had  perished,  his  legal  per 
sonality  survived  and  descended  unimpaired  to  his 
heir  or  co-heirs,  in  whom  his  identity  (so  far  as 
the  law  was  concerned)  was  continued.'  'The 
testator  lived  on  in  his  heir,  or  in  the  group  of 
his  co-heirs.  He  was  in  law  the  same  person  with 
them/  'In  pure  Eoman  jurisprudence  the  prin 
ciple  that  a  man  lives  on  in  his  heir — the  elimina 
tion,  so  to  speak,  of  the  fact  of  death — is  too  obvi 
ously,  for  mistake,  the  centre  round  which  the 
whole  law  of  testamentary  and  intestate  succes 
sion  is  circling.'  Maine  explains  this  idea  by  refer 
ence  to  the  period  when  the  family,  and  not  the  in 
dividual,  was  the  'unit  of  society.'  'The  prolonga 
tion  of  a  man's  legal  existence  in  his  heir,  or  in  a 
group  of  co-heirs,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
characteristic  of  the  family  transferred  by  a  fiction 
to  the  individaul/  * 

"Inheritance  then  is  founded  on  a  theory  worthy 
of  Punch?" 

"You  might  say  that,"  the  professor  assented, 
"if  you  look  at  it  in  itself,  but  not  if  you  consider 
its  great  performances  in  history.  Then  it  is 
sublime." 


266        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

GILES  toiled  on,  becoming  ever  more  of  an  in 
ternational  monarch  and  hero.  Philip  had  re 
mained  in  The  Amalgamated,  hoping  that  Giles 
would  relent  when  he  realized  the  seriousness  of 
Margaret's  purpose.  There  was  no  softening,  and 
when  the  great  financier  evinced  his  resolution  to 
fight  more  stubbornly,  Philip  withdrew  from  the 
partnership,  leaving  him  alone.  Philip  then  ex 
ecuted  a  plan  which  his  experience  in  The  Amal 
gamated  had  suggested.  Putting  on  a  common 
laborer's  garb,  which  obliterated  his  personality 
beyond  recognition  and  deprived  him  of  the  re 
spect  hypnotically  commanded  by  clothes,  and 
taking  a  new  name,  he  secured  work  in  the  con 
cern's  mills  in  different  cities,  to  learn  by  exact 
knowledge  the  answer  to  certain  questions.  After 
a  number  of  months  of  this  investigation,  am 
plified  by  talking  with  thousands  of  workingmen 
and  experience  in  their  unions,  he  joined  Margaret 
thenceforth  to  work  in  common  with  her. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        267 

At  this  time  Horace  Gray  died.  As  a  boy  he 
had  possessed  a  strong  constitution.  His  parents 
were  without  means  beyond  those  necessary  to  feed, 
clothe  and  give  a  proper  common  schooling  to 
four  children.  Gray  had  educated  himself,  earn 
ing  his  way  by  any  work  he  could  lay  his  hand  to, 
with  proof-reading  always  to  fall  back  on.  The 
strain  involved  was  nearly  twice  what  his  vigorous 
system  could  endure  uninjured.  Many  of  the  fel 
lows  who  had  essayed  the  same  thing,  sons  of 
people  of  moderate  condition  like  his  own,  though 
financially  and  socially  above  the  working  class, 
broke  down  entirely.  Some  committed  suicide, 
some  went  insane,  some  developed  diseases  from 
which  they  subsequently  died,  or  lingered  feebly. 
Others  were  obliged  to  abandon  an  educated  career 
and  follow  a  wretched  valetudinarian  existence  as 
farmers,  but  all  was  carefully  hushed  up  by  the 
college  authorities,  and  statements  over  the  signa 
ture  of  the  president  were  annually  published  that 
young  men  in  straitened  circumstances  had  no 
difficulty  in  earning  their  way  through  the  institu 
tion,  and  the  public  continued  in  its  foolish  mis 
take  that  higher  education  was  open  to  the  masses. 

Gray  survived  this  period,  though  much  broken. 
The  wear  followed  him  into  practical  life  when 
he  adopted  the  luxury  of  being  honest  with  him 
self  and  having  principle.  Every  avenue  but 


268         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

severe  drudgery  was  barred  if  he  was  not  willing 
to  stultify  himself  by  the  sale  of  his  talents  to  uses 
which  were  dishonorable  and  base.  The  drudgery 
he  would  not  have  minded,  he  had  served  often  and 
long  at  that,  but  he  did  mind  being  forbidden  by 
the  decree  of  drudgery  to  do  anything  to  extend 
the  nobler  conceptions  of  life  which  he  held,  to  the 
great  stolid  majority. 

The  first  light  and  security  came  when  Philip 
Burson  found  him  out.  It  was  then  too  late.  His 
brain  was  not  dimmed  and  he  held  his  post  to 
the  end  like  a  pilot  in  mortal  storm,  beating  fever 
ishly  against  the  coming  night  to  accomplish  a 
slight  part  of  the  work  which  he  had  made  lumin 
ous  with  his  life. 

When  they  gave  him  to  the  flames  Philip  mads 
the  brief  address,  comparing  his  own  advantages 
as  inheritor  without  reason  of  the  income  of  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  with  the  killing  strug 
gles  of  Gray,  who  had  inherited  a  large  soul  and 
commanding  mind  with  transcendent  devotion  to 
the  highest  path-finding  ideals,  but  no  money  and 
no  pull.  There  he  was  dead,  his  powers  spumed 
by  men  and  hurled  tauntingly  back  into  the  un 
known  that  had  sent  him,  as  if  the  world  were 
so  fertile  in  goodness  and  genius  that  their  bearers 
could  be  despised  and  sacrificed  in  the  morning 
of  their  work— while  men  below  the  threshold  of 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         269 

the  human  were  rioting  in  earth's  superabundant 
substance,,  a  little  of  which  would  have  saved  this 
surpassing  spirit  for  glorious  ministry  to  men. 

Gray  had  requested  that  his  name  should  not 
disclose  the  burial  place  of  his  ashes.  The}7 
marked  the  spot  with  a  rough  boulder  with  only 
the  words  on  it,  "One  of  the  First  Human  Men/7 

Giles  meanwhile  throve  in  the  higher  quarters. 
He  was  a  thing  of  worship  to  the  rich,  with  the  \/ 
nimbus  of  an  emperor  on  his  calculating  head;  a 
couple  of  widows  and  orphans,  also,  whose  money 
he  had  borrowed  for  a  moral  shield,  blessed  him. 
When  greed  obliged  him  to  perform  an  uncom 
monly  criminal  action  he  declared  that  all  his  en 
terprises  were  conducted  for  the  benefit  of  widows 
and  orphans,  and  criticism  slumbered. 

Nevertheless  the  working  class  was  assuming  a 
new  and  disagreeable  attitude  toward  him. 
Formerly  when  he  went  among  them  they  had 
conducted  themselves  becomingly,  as  if  he  were 
an  exalted  emanation,  but  now  they  let  him  pass, 
paying  no  heed  whatever  or  even  indulging  in 
very  open  scowls,  as  much  as  to  say,  why  are  you 
putting  your  unwelcome  nose  among  us?  Isn't 
it  enough  that  we  are  your  slaves  and  make  you 
rich  ?  He  felt  so  bitterly  angry  at  these  slights  and 
insults — for  of  course  they  were  insults  since  he 
was  their  master  and  their  bread  and  butter  giver 


270        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

—that  one  day  in  high  rage  he  discharged  several 
for  not  speaking  to  him  as  he  passed  through  a 
shop.  Forthwith  every  worker  in  that  mill  struck, 
the  disaffection  spread  rapidly,  soon  every  man, 
woman  and  child  employed  by  The  Amalgamated 
in  the  United  States  laid  down  his  tools  and 
•-J  walked  out.  The  event  shook  the  money  markets 
of  the  world  and  almost  precipitated  a  stupendous 
panic.  Giles,  to  minimize  the  instructiveness  of 
the  revolt,  hastily  received  the  discharged  men 
hack  and  for  that  time  ended  the  industrial  re 
bellion  and  lowering  cataclysm. 

Naturally  the  consequences  of  this  strike  did  not 
die  with  it.  The  workers  had  latterly  adopted  new 
policies;  they  did  not  leave  it  for  a  few  salaried 
leaders  to  sit  apart  and  decide  what  the  mass  of 
them  should  do,  nor  to  weightily  propound  judg- 
i  ments  for  them  to  follow:  they  trained  themselves 
to  frequently  meet  in  every  district,  regarding  it 
as  a  man's  duty  above  every  other,  to  himself  and 
his  comrade  toilers,  to  be  invariably  present  and  to 
say  freely  what  he  thought  of  affairs.  It  was  a 
working-class  revival  of  the  town  meeting.  No 
one  who  spoke  was  made  to  think  himself  a  fool 
by  wisdom-monopolizing  heads  and  managers  pos 
ing  as  big  men  and  sneering  from  an  inner  circle. 
For  there  was  no  inner  circle,  because  the  people 
would  not  allow  one  to  start.  We  can  attend  to 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         271 

our  own  affairs  by  attending  to  them,  was  their 
motto,  and  they  lived  up  to  it.  Politics,  the  caie 
of  society,  they  curtly  said,  takes  precedence  of 
every  other  work  a  man  can  do:  it  is  the  base 
which  all  stands  on,  and  if  neglected  or  badly  man 
aged  all  else  goes  wrong.  Hitherto  we  have  given 
its  care  to  a  special  class,  who  naturally  turned 
swindlers,  making  a  sharpers'  private  profession 
out  of  it.  If  we  left  our  breathing  to  some  one 
else  he  would  doubtless  charge  a  profit  of  us  and 
steal  our  air.  If  each  did  not  himself  take  care 
of  so  fundamental  a  thing  as  eating  we  should 
all  probably  go  foodless  most  of  the  time — except 
of  course  the  ones  appointed  to  feed  us,  who  would 
go  gorged.  Politics  is  the  nutrition  of  society. 
It  is  a  fundamental  corporate  action;  it  is  the 
preservation  of  social  health  -by  good  social  hy 
giene,  comparable  to  bathing,  breathing,  and  right 
feeding  in  the  individual,  a  personal  function,  not 
delegable.  Delegating  politics  is  the  cause  of  all 
colossal  swindlings  of  the  masses,  because  the 
agents  or  deputies,  having  primary  and  prac 
tically  infinite  powers  thrust  on  them,  instantly 
erect  the  powers  conferred  into  a  masterful  system 
for  general  plunder. 

Of  course  politics,  when  each  is  his  own  poli 
tician,  will  extirpate  that  noxious  tare  the  polit 
ical  specialist  or  politician  as  now  known.  Even 


272         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

the  word  will  probably  die,  because  of  its  foul 
significance  in  our  corrupt  times.  It  will  be  then 
impossible  for  a  new  Gibbon  to  say,  "In  each  suc 
cessive  revolution  the  patient  herd  becomes  the 
property  of  its  new  masters/"  for  except  by  the  use 
of  delegated  politics  masters  cannot  arise.  And 
then,  under  popular  ownership  of  productive  prop 
erty,  in  what  respects  could  politics  be  similar  to 
our  politics ! 

What  has  corrupted  St.  Louis  into  a  fourth 
power  of  Tyre,  Sidon,  Sodom  and  Gomorrah? 
The  capitalists  in  it.  Its  first  men,  its  leading  cit 
izens,  its  rich,  its  respected  because  they  are  rich. 
They  are  its  debauchers.  Remove  them,  blot  their 
tanks  of  money  out,  and  you  kill  the  reptile  of 
bribery  which  lives  on  their  money.  One  million 
aire  capitalist  endorsed  a  note  for  $135,000  to  be 
used  for  bribery.  The  leading  political  boodler 
has  made  several  millions  for  himself  selling  the 
city's  property  to  the  city's  capitalists.  Pals  and 
accomplices  of  a  gang  of  these  eminent  rascals, 
convicted  of  the  crimes  and  under  sentence,  are 
free  and  thriving  in  the  Municipal  Assembly — a 
legislature  of  convicts,  making  the  laws  of  the 
town.  If  any  poor  man  broke  those  convict-made 
laws  he  would  be  railroaded  for  a  couple  or  twenty 
years  in  a  couple  of  hours  by  judges  made  by  these 
convicts.  This  is  Capitalist  Justice.  If  a  traction 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         273 

conductor  should  steal  five  cents  from  the  Sub 
urban  Railroad  whose  director  endorsed  the 
bribery  note  for  $135,000  to  steal  franchises  and 
properties  from  the  city  worth  millions,  that 
criminal  conductor  would  get  the  extent  of  the  law 
— the  director  gets  the  extent  of  the  city's  treasury. 

"In  St.  Louis  the  regularly  organized  thieves 
who  rule  have  sold  $50,000,000  worth  of  fran 
chises  and  other  valuable  municipal  assets"  for 
not  a  tenth  their  value  and  pocketed  the  whole. 
Who  bought  them?  The  capitalists,  who  bribed 
the  city's  rulers  who  sold  them.  Every  possession 
the  city  has  is  "listed  for  future  sale"  in  the  same 
way  to  capitalists.  The  boodle  capitalists  have 
their  eye  on  the  $40,000,000  city  water  plant  and 
will  next  buy  that  of  the  boodle  politicians  for 
$15,000,000  or  less.  Philadelphia  boodlers  of  both 
classes,  capitalist  and  politicist,  most  respected 
Quaker  City  personages,  rich  and  old  in  lineage 
and  sin,  showed  them  how.* 

If  the  capitalists  were  put  out  of  trade,  made  a 
fossil  type,  who  would  bribe,  who  would  buy? 
Who  then  could  boodle?  The  corruption  in  St. 
Louis  "involves,  not  thieves,  gamblers  and  com 
mon  women,  but  influential  citizens,  capitalists, 
and  great  corporations.  For  the  stock  in  trade  of 
the  boodler  is  the  rights,  privileges,  franchises, 

*  Philadelphia  gas  works  and  trolley  franchises. 


274        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

and  real  property  of  the  city,  and  his  source  of 
corruption  is  the  top,  not  the  bottom  of  society." 
It  is  the  rich.  The  life  of  the  political  thief  is 
the  greater  capitalist  thief.  Political  swindlers 
are  chicks  hatched  by  the  capitalists.  The  cure  is 
plain. 

At  these  industrial  town  meetings  of  The 
Amalgamated  workers  the  power  of  the  strike  was 
keenly  considered.  What  could  the  few  owners  do 
if  the  men  everywhere  should  refuse  to  work  for 
them?  The  effect  of  every  limited  strike  is  de 
stroyed  by  toilers  in  other  departments  working 
and  keeping  things  in  motion  for  capitalists.  For 
example,  in  a  great  coal  strike  the  railroad  men 
continued  their  labors,  hauling  to  market  all  the 
coal  dug  by  strike-breakers,  and  being  the  most 
potent  allies  of  the  coal-owners,  without  realizing 
it.  Through  their  aid  to  the  employers  the  conflict 
lasted  five  months  and  ended  dubiously  in  a  com 
mission  award  which  granted  the  miners  a  few 
trivial  points,  leaving  the  battle  to  be  fought  again 
by  and  by;  while  if  the  railroad  men  had  sided 
staunchly  with  their  own  kind,  the  toilers,  in  the 
struggle,  however  many  renegade  coal-diggers  the 
operators  might  have  scavengered  up,  not  a  ton  of 
anthracite  could  have  left  the  mines  and  the  na 
tion  would  have  brought  up  instantly  against  the 
coal  famine,  which  as  things  went  was  staved  off 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        275 

months.  And  why  did  the  railroad  branch  of 
labor — firemen,,  brakemen,  engineers,  and  others — 
haul  coal  in  support  of  these  mining  roads  to  co 
operate  in  starving  their  comrade  workers  toward 
surrender  ?  No  soothsayer  can  tell. 

Such  facts  and  reflections  awakened  a  lumin 
ous  train  of  thought  in  the  laboring  masses.  If 
the  capitalists  extracted  bloated  riches  from  them, 
they  were  a  party  to  the  act  by  consenting  to  work 
for  capitalists  and  create  the  riches.  They  were 
not  confined  to  politics  for  deliverance,  politics 
enclosed  in  a  reeking  system  of  political  corrup 
tion  caused  by  possession  of  great  political  ma 
chines  by  the  rich.  If  they  trusted  to  politics 
alone  they  had  to  face  the  danger  that  the  com 
mon  people,  still  raw  in  the  firm  individual  use 
of  their  political  functions,  might  he  tricked  by 
their  elected  saviors  in  .office.  The  people  have 
brought  forth  many  revolutions  but  in  every  one 
have  been  swindled  of  the  best  results  by  their 
pretended  friends.  To  fight  politically  there  must 
be,  or  at  any  rate  would  be,  a  revolutionary  polit 
ical  party  modeled  after  its  antagonists,  and  would 
not  this  party  adopt  the  fighting  methods  of  its 
foes,  for  expediency  and  strength,  and  sink 
straight  toward  their  level  of  fraud,  dishonor,  and 
personal  aggrandizement?  Hosts  of  shrewd  ras 
cals  in  the  dives  of  law  and  politics,  grafter  attor- 


276        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

neys — and  the  workers  are  pathetically  credulous 
of  a  black  coated  and  hearted  pettifogger  who 
knows  the  wrinkles  of  infamy,  they  think  he  will 
lead  them  into  Zion  by  a  trap-door,  look  how 
they  send  him  to  Congress — shoals  of  them  are 
only  waiting  for  the  radical  movement  to  become 
strong,  when  they  will  vociferate  themselves  its 
devoted  champions,  and  take  nothing  but  the 
plums  of  power,  glory,  office,  and  general  manage 
ment  in  return.  They  have  often  done  it.  The 
people  knew  their  rottenness,  thought  perhaps  that 
hurled  at  the  enemy  they  might  do  the  work  of  a 
rotten  bombshell.  Such  men  at  the  head  would 
kill  the  reform  and  intend  to  kill  it;  again  the 
masses  would  be  duped. 

The  perception  of  these  grave  dangers  did  not 
deter  The  Amalgamated  workers  from  preparing 
to  make  the  battle  politically.  It  strengthened 
their  resolve  to  give  leaders  and  delegates  no  rope, 
but  to  hold  every  political  act  in  their  own  hands 
with  an  iron  grasp.  But  it  also  nursed  a  de 
cision  not  to  rest  their  whole  reliance  in  the  polit 
ical  sphere. 

The  other  method  was  to  force  the  capitalist 
owners  to  a  direct  arrangement  with  them  outside 
of  politics  and  political  compulsion.  The  wider 
and  more  general  a  strike  should  become,  the  more 
powerless  would  be  the  owners.  Business  of  every 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         277 

kind  could  be  brought  to  a  dead  halt.  If  the 
strike  were  general,  with  the  decision  to  carry  it  on 
till  the  capitalists  surrendered  and  agreed  to  the 
workers'  demand  to  be  taken  as  equal  partners 
into  the  Trust  groups,  what  could  the  so-called 
owners  do  ?  They  would  have  to  yield,  starve,  or 
fight  with  weapons.  But  how  could  they  constitu 
tionally  fight  with  weapons?  The  workingmen 
would  be  peacefully  exercising  a  divine  right  not 
to  work.  If  the  military  were  ordered  to  round 
them  up  to  their  tasks  with  bullets,  who  are  the 
military?  Five-sixths  are  workingmen.  Work 
ingmen  will  soon  be  too  well  educated  to  shoot 
fellow  workingmen  for  capitalists'  benefit.  It 
would  be  unconstitutional  to  drive  unwilling  men 
to  work  with  guns.  Enlightened  workingmen 
cannot  be  expected  to  obey  unlawful  orders  even  to 
please  the  rich.  The  shooting  plan  may  be  set 
aside.  The  little  squad  of  world-owners'  sons 
would  hardly  open  fire  on  the  mighty  hosts  of 
workingmen  if  their  fathers  told  them  to. 

The  capitalists  would  not  want  to  starve.  They 
and  their  butlers,  coachmen  and  valets  would  be 
obliged  to  go  into  their  factories,  flour  mills, 
bakeries,  abattoirs,  delivery  wagons,  railway  en 
gines,  mines,  and  clothing  sweatshops,  to  produce 
their  own  food  and  fuel  and  garments  and  de 
liver  them  to  themselves,  to  work  as  their  own 


278        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

operatives,  blacksmiths,  brakemen,  builders,  sea 
men,     farmers,     firemen,     electricians,     printers, 
cigar-makers,    clerks,    accountants,    ash-emptiers, 
scavengers,  garbagers,  common  laborers,  or  their 
lives  and  their  profits  would  soon  gloomily  end. 
They  might  as  well  throw  snowballs  at  the  sun 
to  quench  it  as  to  resist  their  fate.     They  would 
yield,  as  the  child  does  to  the  man.     They  might 
squirm  but  they  would  get  over  it.     They  would 
capitulate  without  the  general  strike,   when   the 
people  announced  the  date  of  it.    They  would  ab 
dicate,  and  do  it  cheerfully  in  contemplation  of 
how  much  worse  things  might  have  been  for  them. 
Now  the  readjustment  would  be  an  industrial 
process,  not  a  political  one.     Political   shysters, 
,   political  saviors  of  mankind  for  the  pay  or  glory 
-    of  it,  would  have  no  part  in  the  deed.     History 
would  be  saved  an  immense  sum  of  incorrect  blus 
ter.     There  would  be  a  few  less  imaginary  heroes 
but   mankind   itself    would   have   become   heroic. 
There  would  be  no  reconstruction  period  with  po 
litical  carpet-ba0gers  in  the  captain's  cabin  steer 
ing    salvation    and    scheming   how    to    keep    the 
helm  and  their  reputation  of  disinterested  saviors 
at  the  same  time. 

The  transition  would  be  good-natured,  har 
monious,  polite,  conducted  pleasantly  along  the 
paths  already  reasoned  out  by  the  workers  and 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         279 

blazed  out  by  the  capitalists.  When  finished,  poli 
tics  would  have  lost  nine-tenths  of  its  field — which 
is  taking  care  of  private  capitalists'  and  adven 
turers'  interests.  After  that  there  would  be  no 
danger  of  the  people  losing  their  cause  by  the 
machinations  of  political  spellbinders  playing  the 
game  of  radical  politics  in  order  to  steal  its  fruits. 

At  their  great  educational  meetings  the  people, 
reckoning  on  the  present  saturation  of  all  politics 
with  fraud  and  swindle,  therefore  made  up  their 
minds  to  prepare  for  the  general  strike  as  a  par 
allel  and  concurrent  measure.  If  one  plan  halted 
or  missed  the  wanted  results,  the  other  would 
carry.  They  recognized  the  interminable  delays 
of  politics  because  of  our  undemocratic  framework 
of  government,  given  us  by  the  fathers  in  their 
dread  of  real  control  by  the  people,  and  saw  the 
possibilities  of  miscarriage.  Personal  adjudica 
tion  with  the  capitalists  would  involve  no  obstruc 
tions,  and  could  be  instantaneous.  Nothing  in 
deed  could  be  simpler  or  swifter  formed  than 
workers'  industrial  partnerships  out  of  the  Trusts. 

The  people  counted  also  on  the  fact  of  human 
nature  that  men  will  act  with  strikingly  greater 
wisdom  and  intelligence  as  well  as  strength  when 
something  is  to  be  done  rather  than  voted  to  be 
done.  Experience  shows  that  they  can  be  vitally 
stirred  to  act  where  they  cannot  to  vote.  It  is  nat- 


280        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

ural,  because  the  thrill  of  doing  something  fires 
them,  and  what  they  do  by  putting  forth  strength 
or  mind  is  finished  and  done.  Men  will  fight  and 
die,  and  strike  and  suffer,  where  they  will  not  vote 
themselves  into  the  promised  land.  Though  vot 
ing  might  speed  and  enlarge  their  success  they  are 
tardy  at  it.  A  sage  once  found  a  New  England 
farmer  who  said,  what  is  done  with  the  gun  stays 
done,  and  one  might  say  what  were  done  by  the 
universal  strike  would  stay  done.  The  memory  of 
it  would  be  enshrined  in  facts  portentously  felt, 
with  no  desire  for  re-experience. 

Hence  the  laborers  formed  a  Universal  Strike 
Association,  keeping  it  quite  aloof,  from  their 
everyday  Trade  Unions.  The  officers  of  the  latter 
had  mostly  fallen  into  ruts  and  reverently  re 
garded  the  capitalist  regime  as  a  holy  finality. 
Giles  was  occasionally  issuing  public  bulletins  of 
instruction  and  warning  to  these  men,  such  as  the 
following : 

"Labor,"  he  said,  "must  not  feel  too  much  em 
boldened  by  the  result  of  its  recent  strike,  nor  be 
cause  prominent  employers  have  declared  for  the 
arbitration  movement.  Labor/'  he  solemnly  en 
joined  them,  "will  relegate  itself  to  a  worse  po 
sition  than  it  has  ever  occupied  by  making  radical 
demands." 

Thus  he  kept  the  sword  of  Damocles  quivering 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         281 

over  Labor's  head  and  frequently  shook  it  appall 
ingly  by  a  menace  of  what  he  would  do  if  they 
made  radical  demands  on  him.  Eadical  meant  de- 
mands  that  amounted  to  anything. 

Of  the  labor  leader  they  had  first  had  with 
them  up  at  the  Industrial  Dinner  and  Love 
League  he  said,  "There  is  a  man  the  size  of  whose 
head  no  success  will  ever  change/'  by  which  he  sig 
nified  that  the  capitalists  had  him  so  well  in  hand 
that  there  was  nothing  to  fear  in  him. 

At  all  this  the  rank  and  file  of  labor  now  only 
laughed;  the  labor  leaders,  however,  took  it  as 
their  instructions  for  duty. 

The  Universal  Strike  idea  kindled  immense  en 
thusiasm.  Victory  was  made  sure  by  it,  and  it 
also  aroused  the  voters  to  vote  for  themselves.  It 
was  something  concrete,  with  a  vast  and  spirit- 
animating  stake;  the  laborers  knew  how  to  strike, 
it  was  their  forte. 


282         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

GILES  and  his  intricate  machinery  of  deception 
— college,  politician,,  clergy,  and  all — had  totally 
lost  their  influence  with  the  common  people.  For 
himself  he  discovered  that  half  the  delight  of 
being  a  capitalist  monarch  had  oozed  out  since  the 
working  people  showed  him  open  scorn  and  he 
could  do  nothing  to  resent  it.  They  treated  him 
as  a  malefactor,  turning  their  heads  away  when 
they  passed  him,  who  had  formerly  rejoiced  in  the 
sensations  an  emperor  has  riding  through  the 
hushed  files  of  his  cringing  caitiffs  in  a  court 
chariot. 

This  man  takes  the  bread  we  earn  out  of  our 
mouths,  the  people  growled ;  why  is  he  not  a  thief 
and  vicious  ingrate?  Let  him  restore  our  goods 
if  he  wants  our  notice,  we  can't  condescend  to  so 
hypocritical  a  wretch.  Very  low-sunken  is  he  to 
pillage  us  and  come  for  our  smiles  and  nods. 
Away  with  such  banking  on  our  gullibility!  A 
thief  is  a  thief,  big  or  little,  illegal  or  legal. 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         283 

Giles  had  been  proudly  silent  when  Margaret 
left  him  for  her  life  among  the  workers.  As  a 
martyr  for  the  Eights  of  Property  he  meant  to  live 
it  out.  Time,  however,  brought  the  revelation 
that  Companionship  and  Love  are  greater  than 
Property  in  all  its  Glory.  He  was  alone  among 
men,  in  alliance  with  the  class  that  had  killed  his 
loved  wife  in  the  richness  of  youth  and  poisoned 
the  wellspring  of  his  joy.  It  came  upon  him  that 
after  all  his  enemies  had  won.  He  was  fighting  v 
the  battle  of  their  class  now,  an  irony  that  made 
him  gnash  his  teeth.  The  only  pleasure  of  it  was 
the  wrecking  of  them  one  by  one  as  his  monstrous 
industrial  crusher  gathered  momentum  down  the 
commercial  incline. 

But  the  survivors  shared  his  pleasure  in  seeing 
the  bubble  of  their  friends'  happy  fortunes  burst, 
oblivious  to  the  certainty  that  the  same  grim  fate 
was  beating  its  black  wings  over  them.  Friend 
ship  counts  for  naught  in  Commerce.  All  of  these 
rich  men  had  old  scores  of  fraud  and  hate  against 
one  another  and  praised  Giles  as  a  just  Providence 
for  avenging  them.  If  they  went  down  later 
themselves  it  was  almost  worth  ruin  to  have  seen 
the  ruin  of  their  boon  friends  first.  And  their 
ruin  marched  on.  The  Great  Amalgamated  Fish,  v 
Ship,  Iron,  Transportation,  Coal  and  Steel  Com 
pany  spared  none.  According  to  the  Rights  of 


284         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

Property  written  in  the  sidereal  system  when  the 
Universe  slipped  the  leash  of  our  sun  and  gave  it 
the  spin  that  made  us,  The  Amalgamated  was  en 
titled  to  the  whole  earthly  Ball;  and  it  was  fast 
getting  it. 

The  fact  that  this  travail  of  the  stars  did  not 
bring  Giles  happiness  was  writing  itself  in  hiero 
glyphic  figures  on  his  face.  Nothing  could  shake 
that  mighty  constitution,  yet  the  furrows  deep 
ened  and  that  victorious  eagle  look  was  less  de 
fined.  Sometimes  he  tried  to  hate  Margaret  but 
his  mind  was  too  clear;  she  had  told  him  it  was 
her  right  to  live  her  ideas  too,  which  echoed  in  his 
soul  when  he  strove  to  nurse  bitterness.  "She  is 
higher  than  I"  was  the  sentence  that  ever  formed 
itself,  and  he  would  wonder  if  her  greater  eleva 
tion  of  mind  had  its  whole  origin  in  the  mother — 
or  had  he  also  been  noble  once  ? 

How  little  he  had  known  this  daughter!  Per 
haps  had  he  not  been  so  cocksure  of  his  powers  he 
might  have  learned  her  secret  and  grown  up  to  her 
stature.  He  had  despised  the  chance  of  true 
union  with  the  only  living  soul  that  had  been  on 
his  side  of  the  terrible  abyss  between  him  and  man 
kind. 

The  awful  loneliness  of  being  shut  out  from 
this  one  kindred  being  in  the  living  world  gnawed 
him  until  he  found  relief  by  going  to  one  of  her 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         285 

meetings.  A  little  getting  up  gave  him  the  ap-  ^ 
pearance  of  a  stranger  and  he  chose  an  incon 
spicuous  place.  As  Margaret  spoke  Giles  felt  the 
load  of  care  that  had  been  heavy  on  him  lighten 
ing  ;  it  was  as  when  one  starts  on  a  long,  peaceful 
journey  of  rest,  breaking  the  relentless  spell  that 
has  made  the  routine  acts  of  the  mind  a  galley  tor 
ture. 

She  was  talking  of  the  social  revolution  accom 
plished  by  Trusts.  It  was  not  a  revolution  to  be, 
but  one  this  instant  in  the  height  of  fulfilment. 
Stripped  of  side  issues  it  was  a  revolution  which 
was  wresting  all  the  industries  from  the  people 
and  degrading  the  entire  mass  of  them,  save  the 
owning  few,  to  a  hired  population.  That  was  a 
distinct  and  amazing  downfall,  a  passage  from  in 
dependence,  freedom,  to  the  grade  and  contempt 
of  the  servant.  All  men  now  came  from  the  womb 
of  Being  to  lead  a  hired  life.  A  hired  man  with 
no  option  but  to  be  hired  is  not  one-fourth  a  man. 

Were  there  wonderful  co-operation  and  labor- 
saving?  Yes,  a  hired  co-operation,  and  a  saving 
of  labor  which  intrinsically  assassinated  and  ex 
terminated  those  whose  labor  was  saved.  Their 
labor  was  saved  and  they  were  lost.  The  Trust  Era 
was  the  era  of  Industrial  Assassination.  Those 
unneeded  by  Trusts  were  dropped  into  the  Eiver  of 
Want  which  soon  consumed  their  strength  to  cry 


286        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

against  wrong  and  swept  them  down  to  the  ocean 
of  death.  The  gods  of  wealth  called  them  the  un 
fit,  and  said  they  ought  to  go.  In  truth,  the  un- 
needed  fit  were  made  unfit  by  Want,  then  went 
down.  Unneeded,  not  by  Life  and  the  Growth  of 
Man,  hut  hy  the  Gods  of  Eiches.  Unfit  to  add  to 
these  gods'  riches — that  was  their  unfitness.  To 
be  productive  of  values  not  comprehensible  to 
these  creatures  they  were  fit.  The  best,  who 
would  not  creep  before  the  wealth  majesties,  went 
down.  The  highest  race-fruit  stolen,  destroyed 
by  these  gods  because  they  could  not  comprehend 
and  did  not  want  it;  the  cream  of  mankind  thrown 
waste  by  them  because  their  bat-blind  sordidness 
had  no  use  for  it.  And  the  race  was  left  sterile 
and  impoverished.  The  blind  survived  and  wor 
shiped  the  blind,  and  all  united  in  hosannas  to  the 
blindest. 

But  the  Trusts  opened  the  way  to  a  social  con 
struction  of  the  highest  order,  one  impossible  be 
fore  the  Trusts  came.  They  permitted  a  natural, 
unforced  association  of  mankind  up  to  which  men 
were  already  trained.  Not  a  single  new  or  un 
tried  principle  would  have  to  be  employed.  Trusts, 
by  organizing  industry  had  made  the  production 
of  such  a  quantity  of  wealth  possible  that  there 
was  now  no  reason,  real  or  fictitious,  for  giving  an 
unearned  income  to  a  few,  there  was  enough  for 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         287 

all  to  have  the  best  things  of  life  liberally,  with 
out  favoritism  or  exclusion.  All  could  possess  the 
highest  culture,  as  far  as  they  had  ability,  making 
obsolete  the  idea  of  a  class  of  culture  specialists — 
a  class  existing  through  the  sm-culture  of  many, 
yet  pretending  to  exist  to  supply  culture  to  the 
many,  a  class  like  nobilities  and  kings  always  cer 
tain  to  betray  its  trust. 

There  would  have  to  be  no  starting  at  the  bot 
tom  and  building  up  new  industrial  structures  by 
battle  and  competition,  the  Trust  structures  and 
amalgamated  plants  were  there,  already  well  built 
up,  with  all  the  men  in  them  accustomed  to  work 
ing  together.  The  partnership  system  of  owners 
and  workers  in  one  unity  had  been  tried,  wherein 
the  owners  were  the  workers.  And  in  other  suc 
cessful  enterprises  on  a  great  scale  the  workers  had 
not  only  been  shareholding  owners,  but  actual 
proprietors,  directors,  and  managers,  in  associa 
tion.  Yet  further,  workers  had  started  jointly  at 
the  very  bottom,  possessing  no  capital  but  their 
latent  labor,  managing  everything,  creating  every 
thing  by  toil,  without  a  capitalist  or  a  trained 
industrial  manager  to  help  them,  and  they  had 
massed  up  a  great  capital  plant,  yet  capitalist-less, 
with  which  they  had  competed  successfully  and 
still  are  growingly  competing,  with  capitalist' 
steered  industries. 


288        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

On  these  plants  there  were  no  unearning  suckers 
of  the  plant  life — why  have  them  on  any?  But 
why  compel  these  industrial  associations  to  grow 
up  out  of  nothing,  keeping  up  the  fiendish  in 
ternecine  battle,  when  here  they  are  already  grown, 
excepting  an  easy  readjustment  of  the  units 
within?  When  in  every  line  of  production  the 
mastering  tendency  is  to  form  one  of  these  asso 
ciations  or  trusts,  smoothing  the  change  to  inter 
nal  democracy? 

Industrial  transitions  cannot  be  guessed  or 
prophesied  long  ahead.  Until  we  had  the  actual 
Trust  confronting  us,  worked  out  practically, 
evolved  along  least  resistance,  it  was  impossible 
to  determine  the  wisest  manner  of  general  en 
trance  into  the  fruits  of  industrial  conquest.  The 
frameworks  that  could  undoubtingly  be  employe! 
for  a  higher  rise  in  progress  were  not  here.  They 
could  not  readily  have  been  artificially  constructed, 
they  might  have  toppled  down.  But  now  social 
nature  has  grown  a  living  product,  adjusted  to 
actual  conditions  up  to  a  point,  and  only  calling 
for  further  intelligence  to  finish  the  adjustment 
according  to  the  highest  insight  of  the  time.  The 
growth  came  from  the  type  of  men  we  had,  a 
higher  type  would  have  done  much  better;  the 
growth  was  brutal,  a  higher  type  would  have 
wrought  it  humanly;  but  here  it  is,  and  let  the 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        289 

higher  type  now  take  the  helm  and  guide  it  hu 
manly. 

A  question  was  asked  on  the  science  of  history, 
whether  a  certain  evolution  of  industry  from 
form  to  form  was  not  inevitable,,  Feudalism,  Cap 
italism,  Socialism,  et  cetera,  to  which  Margaret  re 
plied  : 

There  is  no  science  of  history  or  economic 
evolution.  There  are  no  fixed  laws  to  which  in 
dustrial  growth  must  conform.  The  controlling 
force  is  in  the  men  of  the  time,  and  what  they 
may  do  is  uncertain.  It  rests  on  their  intelli 
gence  and  degree  of  will.  The  course  of  society 
is  continually  moulded  and  altered  in  this  way. 
To  say  that  it  has  gone  thus  and  so  because  it  had 
to,  or  will  go  thus  because  it  must,  through  the 
guidance  of  some  inherent  economic  principle, 
is  a  fetish.  It  has  gone  according  to  the  domi 
nant  light  and  strength  in  men  from  age  to  age, 
and  will  thus  waver  or  advance  hereafter.  Had 
there  been  a  little  more  intelligence  at  any  past 
time,  a  few  better  men  living  then,  the  whole 
course  of  history  would  have  been  changed  and 
evolution  would  have  brought  us  to  a  different 
goal.  We  should  have  all  been  higher.  It  is  men, 
always  men,  and  the  quantity  and  quality  of  will 
they  have  and  apply  to  the  great  problems  of  life. 


290        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

And  though  fictitious  economic  or  historic  law? 
may  afterward  be  educed  and  called  guides  and 
necessities,  they  represent  but  empiric  surface 
shows,  while  Power,  alive  with  infinite  possible 
results  and  variabilities,  bound  to  nothing  but  its 
own  degree  and  light,  was  below  all  in  the  brains 
and  wills  of  the  living  men  of  the  period,  giving 
the  push  and  progress.  Laws  are  the  pong  balls  of 
their  light  and  strength.  There  will  be  new  laws 
and  economic  necessities,  idly  so  called,  the  mo 
ment  there  are  new  individuals  with  more  light 
and  strength. 

And  the  supreme  affair  of  those  who  would  ad 
vance  the  world  and  bring  mankind  out  of  its  mid 
night  is,  increasing  the  confidence  of  the  best- 
disposed  in  their  power  to  mould  and  remould 
everything,  drawing  them  to  act  resolutely  and 
inflexibly  upon  their  higher  conceptions  rather 
than  feebly  succumbing  to  their  lower  ones  be 
cause  of  the  formidable  mass  look  of  men,  and  that 
cowardly  intoning  of  the  long  blind  ages  that  we 
are  Subject  to  a  Destiny  outside  ourselves.  For  it 
is  the  will  and  light  in  men's  individual  souls  that 
make  the  absolute  laws,  and  they  are  only  ab 
solute  awaiting  the  coming  of  men  with  richer 
character  and  deeper  sight.  And  if  the  number 
born  with  higher  will  and  clearer  light  can  by 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         291 

some  application  of  our  largening  intelligence 
be  increased,  then  have  we  speeded  the  coming 
of  a  new  world  with  all  the  institutes  of  life  re 
made  and  all  the  codes  of  the  universe  rewritten. 


292        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

AT  the  close  of  Margaret's  address  Giles  came 
forward  to  the  front  of  the  hall.  He  did  not  look 
at  Margaret  but  faced  the  people  with  his  strong 
jaw  set  and  the  inscrutable  twinkle  in  his  deep- 
set  eyes.  A  tremor  of  excitement  swept  the  great 
audience  at  the  menace  of  a  battle  between  these 
two  powerful  representatives  of  conflicting  social 
orders. 

Giles  spoke:  "A  capitalist  deals  in  dollars.  He 
measures  the  good  of  the  world  by  the  number  of 
dollars  there  are  in  it,  and  especially  by  the  num 
ber  of  them  for  him.  He  can't  think  in  other  terms. 
The  progress  of  the  world  is  to  him  the  progress 
of  dollars,  chiefly  of  his  dollars.  The  object  of 
mankind  is  the  increase  of  dollars.  Society,  edu 
cation,  religion,  church,  art,  literature  are  all 
machinery  for  the  proper  understanding  of  the 
dollar.  Flesh  and  blood  are  crude  matter,  the 
finished  product  is  the  dollar.  Man  is  not  an  end 
in  himself:  his  end  is  the  addition  of  dollars 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         293 

to  the  earth.  The  dollar  is  immortal.  It  takes 
the  form  of  capital  and  never  dies;  if  a  man 
leases  dollars  behind  him,  though  he  may  become 
extinct,  his  essence  lives  after  him  doing  the 
mission  of  immortality — ruling  the  destinies  of 
men  through  the  laws  of  wealth. 

"We  worship  the  dollar  in  our  churches:  the 
religious  name  of  the  dollar  is  God;  in  all  our 
schools  we  teach  our  children  to  adore  the  Holy 
Yellow  Deity.  It  is  the  Highest,  for  it  rules  this 
world  without  taking  advice  from  Heaven  above 
or  Hell  below.  The  pliant  children  harden  in 
the  mould  of  coin,  and  when  they  grow  are  settled 
idolizers  of  the  One  God,  Dollar.  All  things 
work  together  for  good  to  those  who  trust  in 
Dollar  and  have  it.  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the 
water  brook  so  panteth  the  souls  of  the  young 
after  almighty  Coin,  when  they  have  studied  the 
lessons  of  our  schools  and  Sunday-schools  and 
pulpits  and  society  and  eminent  examples  and 
books.  The  earth  is  the  Dollar's,  and  the  fulness 
thereof,  the  world  and  they  that  dwell  therein. 

"After  you  have  taught  us  this  and  beaten  it 
into  our  open  young  natures  and  driven  everything 
else  out,  after  we  have  succeeded  and  turned 
our  essence  to  gold,  when  we  have  traded  our 
souls,  hearts,  brains,  and  blood  for  dollars  and 
have  nothing  but  dollars  where  was  once  a  man, 


294        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

you  think  we  shall  by  cherubic  magic  or  miracle 
change  our  granite-stiff  characters  and  behave 
as  if  dollars  were  not  the  all-stuff  of  our  con 
stitution,  as  by  precept,  environment  and  example 
your  sorcery  made  them  to  be?  You  had  better 
begin  undoing  your  work  before  you  do  it. 

"I  figure  up  mules  and  men  by  the  same  com 
mercial  laws  and  shall  never  cease  to.  How  much 
is  there  in  them;  what  can  I  get  out?  I  never 
think  of  a  donkey's  destiny;  nor  of  a  man's — 
how  could  I  make  a  profit  out  of  donkeys  and  men 
if  I  did?  I  have  no  time  to  compute  souls  in 
my  accounts,  it  would  swell  the  expenses  of  busi 
ness  shockingly;  Sundays  and  sermons  were  in 
vented  for  souls,  a  whole  seventh  of  the  time! 
Think  of  the  waste !  and  I  pay  toward  them  liber 
ally.  A  man  ought  to  be  thoroughly  converted 
in  fifty-two  days  a  year,  why  shouldn't  I  have 
the  rest  of  him?  If  he  believes  in  heaven  he  be 
lieves  it  doesn't  make  any  difference  what  happens 
to  him  here,  so  converting  a  workingman  is  a 
mint  cheaper  than  investing  good  wages,  health 
and  intelligence  in  him.  He  thinks  from  Hades 
here  he  pops  into  Bliss  there,  and  he's  a  bundle 
of  blooming  thankfulness  to  the  giver  of  Hades. 
If  I  thought  horses  and  donkeys  had  souls  I  should 
want  them  saved  too,  and  would  invest  money  in 
churches  for  them  if  I  thought  it  would  conduce 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         295 

to  their  submissiveness  and  I  could  have  them  to 
kill  profitably  on  week  days  without  raising  a 
smudge.  Men  are  that  way,  thanks  to  submissive  - 
ness  and  salvation. 

"It  is  reported  that  one  of  our  generals  said 
of  our  negro  soldiery :  In  a  fight  I  am  not  worried 
about  their  safety,  as  it  doesn't  make  any  differ 
ence  whether  they  get  killed  or  not.  If  a  person 
owns  a  thoroughbred  or  full-blooded  dog  and 
also  a  cur,  is  it  not  natural  that  he  would  prefer 
to  have  the  cur  killed  before  the  other?'  I  have 
always  looked  on  the  workingman  as  the  general 
does  on  the  negro ;  I  never  could  see  that  it  made 
any  difference  whether  he  gets  killed  or  not.  I 
don't  call  them  curs  disrespectfully  but  merely 
to  fix  their  place  in  the  world  and  classify  them 
compared  with  the  rich.  Capitalists  have  to  look 
at  things  in  a  large  way  like  that  to  keep  man 
kind  on  its  pegs.  A  few  horses,  donkeys,  curs,  or 
workingmen,  more  or  less,  what  does  it  matter 
so  long  as  P'roduction  goes  on  producing  and 
thoroughbred  capitalists  get  rich? 

"This  is  what  I've  grown  to  and  you  all  helped 
me.  I  thought  you  loved  treatment  on  the  don 
key  principle;  in  all  these  years  I  never  heard 
you  object,  and  you  were  always  on  fire  to  vote 
as  I  wanted  you  to.  It  has  been  your  fault  more 
than  mine,  I  might  say  all  your  fault,  for  even 


296         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

a  capitalist  can't  make  a  willing  slave  free — he'll 
run  to  bondage  to  some  one  else. 

"You  have  made  it  very  disagreeable  for  me 
lately.  Since  you  took  to  showing  me  contempt 
I  haven't  felt  like  a  natural  capitalist.  I  am  will 
ing  to  admit  this  now.  I  shouldn't  have  done  so 
when  I  came  here  this  evening.  I  seem  to  have  im 
bibed  some  new  ideas  to-night,  though  I  can't  just 
see  why  I  didn't  get  them  before.  They  didn't 
sink  in  before,  whether  I  had  them  or  not.  I 
have  sent  men  about  attacking  your  doctrines 
of  equality  in  these  words,  which  I  half  believed 
and  the  other  half  wanted  to  believe." 

Giles  took  a  circular  from  his  pocket  and  read : 
"'Talk  of  the  shriek  of  the  factory  whistle! 
Under  any  plan  of  equality  we  would  get  up,  go 
to  work,  stop  work,  eat  our  dinner,  play,  marry, 
beget  children,  live  and  die  at  the  shriek  of  the 
state  whistle,  or  the  order  of  the  state  inspector — 
which  is  the  same  thing.  The  arts  would  perish, 
;•  industries  cease,  the  books  that  teach  us  the  de 
lights  of  life  would  no  more  be  written — for  all 
would  be  at  the  mercy  of  some  state  inspector. 
Under  any  system  of  equality  conceivable,  if  you 
only  trace  out  the  details  of  its  necessary  conse 
quences,  any  complete  system  of  industrial  and 
social  equality,  the  ruling  of  a  man's  life  in  i1!1 
its  details  by  the  state,  for  industrial  equality  ar.r1 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         297 

such  state  rule  are  identical,  will  result  in  slavery 
— a  dull  and  hopeless  drudgery  for  a  state  ration 
of  food  and  pleasure — a  slavery  from  which  there 
will  be  no  escape — a  tyranny  more  hopeless  and 
hideous  than  the  world  has  ever  known.' 

"I  now  know,"  continued  Giles,  ceasing  to  read, 
"that  this  is  not  true.  I  now  perceive  that  in 
dustrial  equality  is  not  identical  with  state  rul 
ing  of  a  man's  life  and  affairs.  I  ordered  this 
•circular  from  a  Boston  lawyer  and  commanded 
him  to  lay  chief  stress  on  the  point  of  state  rule 
over  all  life's  details  because  we  can  best  hood 
wink  the  people  with  that  fable  against  their 
rights.  If  it  were  true  I  don't  see  that  it  could 
be  a  tittle  worse  or  more  tyrannical  than  my  rul 
ing  men's  lives  and  affairs,  as  I  rule  all  who  work 
for  me.  They  every  one  get  up,  go  to  work,  stop 
work,  eat  their  dinner,  play,  marry,  beget  chil 
dren,  live  and  die  at  the  shriek  of  my  factory 
whistles.  With  them  the  arts  ha've  perished,  in- 
dustries  for  any  but  the  rich  have  ceased,  the  books 
that  teach  us  the  delights  of  life  are  for  them 
not  written  and  never  were;  they  can't  read  them, 
can't  understand  them  and  couldn't  have  the  de 
lights  of  life  described  in  them  anyhow.  They  are 
all  at  the  mercy  of  Me.  Slavery,  drudgery,  tyran 
ny,  hideousness?  If  I  had  been  in  their  places 
every  man,  woman  and  child  of  them  would  have 


298         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

committed  suicide  or  made  an  industrial  revolu 
tion  and  sent  me  kiting  long  ere  this. 

"You  say  they  don't  marry  and  beget  children 
by  the  shriek  of  my  whistle  ?  They  do.  If  I  hold 
a  bright  serious-minded  young  workman  close  to 
the  buzz-saw  of  low  wages  he  dares  not  marry  or 
beget.  If  I  draw  him  back  a  little  from  the  fear 
of  mangling  want,  by  a  small  wage  increase,  he 
risks  it.  Every  workman's  marriage  is  a  pure 
risk  and  a  terrible  one.  Hades  sits  enshrined  in 
his  house  all  the  time,  not  angels  or  God.  He  sees 
its  vast  terror  skulk  aver  his  wife  and  little  ones 
while  he  eats,  he  lies  down  to  sleep  to  dream  of  it. 
It  is  the  Hades  of  Poverty  and  its  obscene  tortures. 
Let  me  increase  his  wages  a  little  more  and  he 
will  bring  Me  more  children  to  be  My  later  slaves. 
It  is  the  shriek  of  My  whistle  that  rules  his 
marrying  and  begetting  and  dying,  too,  for  if 
I  cut  down  wages  on  him  I  can  reduce  the  nutri 
tion  and  size  of  his  family  very  fast.  My  fac 
tory  whistle  controls  population  and  funerals. 
From  womb  to  coffin,  it  is  Me,  Me,  Me,  Me.  Could 
the  state  at  its  worst  and  meanest  equal  this 
Omnipotent  Capitalist,  Me?  Oh  these  prevarica 
tors  who  prattle  about  state  tyranny  and  won't 
see  the  black  horror  of  capitalist  tyranny  over 
every  move  in  the  life  of  every  son  of  man  who 
toils !  Blast  and  blast  such  pretended  density ! 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        299 

i 

It's  the  cowardice  of  us  that's  damning,  even  more 
than  our  selfishness.  I  knew  what  I  was  do 
ing  in  this  sphere  all  the  time,  and  juggled  my 
consciousness  when  it — seldom — pricked.  My  plea 
to  myself  was  that  all  men  are  natural  cattle 
who  submit  to  this  swindle,  proper  food  for  utter 
slavery  to  him  gifted  of  God  to  swindle  them. 

"But  would  an  industrial  state — take  it  again 
at  its  worst — employ  its  tyranny  as  I  have  to 
squelch  the  blood  and  vital  fire  out  of  its  mem 
bers  ?  Bosh.  For  whom  ?  Who  would  do  it  ?  the 
state  inspector?  He  could  not  unless  empowered 
by  the  members  themselves.  Would  they  empower 
him  ?  No.  I  succeeded  only  because  they  empow 
ered  me.  It  is  just  that  which  your  revolution 
teaches  them  not  to  repeat. 

"I  see  that  equality  is  attainable  without  a 
state  mechanism  to  absorb  and  direct  everything, 
attainable  by  great  reduction  of  state  mechanism. 
And  I  have  grown  convinced  that  there  never  will  */ 
be  the  slightest  approach  to  peace  and  happiness 
in  the  human  race  without  industrial  equality. 

"I  never  was  much  of  a  reader,  though  I  have 
read  more  since  I  was  internationally  discovered 
to  be  a  wise  man  on  account  of  my  riches — and 
I  find  it  said  of  the  Eoman  empire  that  'Heavy 
fines,  banishment,  torture,  death,  are  all  ineffec 
tual  to  check  the  inevitable  corruption  of  a  bu- 


300        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

reaucratic  government  operating  ove'r  an  area 
probably  the  widest  which  has  ever  been  ruled 
directly  from  a  single  centre/  *  Precisely  what 
they  did  not  have,  however,  and  went  to  ruin  for 
want  of,  was  industrial  equality.  The  whole  Ro 
man  Empire  was  a  St.  Louis  or  a  Philadelphia. 
All  politics  was  a  strict  department  of  business— 
the  Boodle  department.  It  was  the  most  lucrative 
of  all  industries  because  manufacturing  was  then 
light  and  trusts  unconceived.  Emperorship  was 
the  highest  branch  of  the  boodle  trade.  The 
capitalists  of  the  time  were  the  great  land-owners 
and  state  officials,  mostly  the  same  men.  They 
boodled  serenely  on  all  the  small  of  the  empire 
of  every  station,  the  dumb  majority,  swallowing 
up  the  lesser  landowners.  Army  and  Government 
were  their  bailiffs.  They  were  not  ready  for  in 
dustrial  equality.  We  are. 

"But  nevertheless  Government  is  always  natur 
ally  a  tyrant.  If  we  are  to  have  organization  of 
industry  I  want  it  without  centralization,  essen 
tially  without  government.  I  want  the  govern 
ment  to  do  only  this:  to  see  that  where  individu 
als  will  not  freely  and  voluntarily  organize  in 
dustries  on  lines  of  equality  and  equal  good,  with 
an  industrial  centralization  only  of  federation, 
that  is,  where  individuals  still  selfishly  seek  a 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        301 

private  capitalist  grip,  they  shall  be  required  to 
organize  on  the  principle  of  equality.  This  is 
quite  different  from  philosophical  anarchism  or 
no  government,  and  from  state  collectivism  or  state 
owning  and  managing  of  the  whole  thing,  even  if 
the  state  be  a  peopleized  or  democratized  one  as 
far  as  possible.  Grant  the  state  directive  power, 
though  it  be  a  popularized  state,  it  might  soon 
show  itself  to  be  a  repetition  of  the  Monarchical, 
Eepublican,  state  and  re-commit  all  its  crimes 
and  oppressions,  as  republics  have  reproduced  the 
tyrannous  wrongs  of  monarchies. 

"The  state  as  an  organ  of  all  the  people  to 
enforce  upon  the  selfish  the  adoption  of  an  equal 
copartnership  system  of  industry,  to  be  evolved 
and  conducted  by  the  people  from  below  up  into 
a  unity  of  manifold  individual  intelligence,  initia 
tive  coming  from  the  individuals  instead  of  going 
from  a  central  organization  down,  the  state  itself 
only  requiring  industry  to  be  newly  formed  and 
preserved  on  this  pattern,  but  not  itself  becoming 
an  industrial  manager  or  actual  organizer  of  the 
whole — that  I  think  is  the  proper  use  of  the  State 
or  government  in  the  next  stretch  of  human 
growth. 

"I  had  different  purposes  with  society :  I  freely 
acknowledge  that  I  adopt  this  just  regime  only 
because  you  will  otherwise  force  it  upon  me.  If 


302         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

you  had  given  me  a  little  more  time  I  should  have 
put  you  in  chains.  It  was  the  interference  of  agita  - 
tors  that  saved  you.  I  abhor  agitators — except 
J  my  daughter — they  interfere  with  legitimate 
slavery.  You  never  would  have  done  anything 
for  yourselves  if  agitators  hadn't  stirred  you  up ; 
the  canaille  of  the  world — pardon  the  word — never 
did  anything  without  agitators  to  shake  them. 
From  my  point  of  view  as  a  capitalist,  who  wants 
to  put  the  world  in  his  vest  and  walk  away  with 
it,  an  agitator  is  the  worst  thing  on  the  verdure 
of  human  happiness.  I  acknowledge  I  am  the- 
verdure  of  human  happiness.  The  capitalist  is 
it — or  was  before  the  eruption  of  agitators.  From 
the  people's  point  of  view,  the  agitator  is  the  best 
living  thing.  Agitators  came  among  you,  and  now 
after  patiently  serving  masters  for  six  thousand 
years,  you  propose  to  take  your  own  world  and  be 
your  own  masters. 

"You  may  like  to  know  what  I  intended  to  do 
if  the  agitators  had  tarried  away  a  little  while. 
Reduce  you  to  the  passivity  of  penury.  I  have 
heard  socialist  speakers  say  that  reduction  to  want 
goads  the  common  people  to  assert  themselves, 
change  the  system,  and  get  justice.  It's  just  the 
reverse.  If  the  people  are  debased  slowly  they 
will  sag  torpidly  into  a  half-alive  state  of  moral 
physical  exhaustion,  with  spring  neither  for 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        303 

ideas,  emotions  nor  actions.  Then  will  they  be 
your  sodden  slaves,  power  of  reaction  gone,  and 
you  may  belash  and  kick  and  club  them,  they  will 
not  turn  or  sting,  because  the  nerve  centres  are 
spent. 

"But  you  will  believe  this  if  I  shore  up  my 
opinion  with  the  observation  of  others  who  have 
no  bias.  Here  is  a  London  writer  who  is  stunned 
with  amazement  by  the  passivity  of  the  world's 
poor.  (Takes  a  cutting  on  The  Passivity  of 
Penury  from  his  pocket-book  and  reads.) 

"When  the  money  boxes  are  being  carried'  round 
for  contributions  in  relief  of  the  distress  of  the 
unemployed,  the  West  End  man,  and  the  villa 
man  as  well,  .  .  .  gets  angry  at  what  he  con 
siders  the  pushfulness  and  the  energy  of  the  work 
ing  classes,  backed  by  their  trade  unions,  in  bring 
ing  their  troubles  before  the  public,  and  thinks 
they  show  abnormal  and  misplaced  persistency  in 
putting  forward  their  grievances.  .  .  .  The 
fact  is,  the  well-to-do  Londoner  ....  starts 
off  on  altogether  the  wrong  note  when  he  thinks 
and  speaks  of  the  great  mass  of  working  people 
as  assertive,  and  arrogant,  and  insistent  on  receiv 
ing  help  and  the  redress  of  their  grievances.  The 
most  remarkable  thing  about  what  we  may  call 
the  one  pound  ($5)  or  twenty-five  shillings 
($6.25)  a  week  working  man,  who  is  at  least  three 


304        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

to  one  compared  with  his  more  fortunate  class 
man,  is  his  apathy  and  stolidity;  his  mental  and 
moral  inertia;  his  acceptance,  without  protest  and 
discontent,  of  conditions  which  would  make  his 
critics  writhe  in  fury  if  they  felt  themselves  as 
helpless  as  he  is;  his  hopeless  lack  of  ideas  as  to 
obtaining  redress,  even  if  the  thought  occurs  to 
him  that  redress  is  possible ;  his  acceptance  of  low 
standards  of  life  and  means  of  enjoyment  com 
parable  to  the  passivity  and  fatalism  of  the  Indian 
ryot. 

"Let  the  well-to-do  critic  imagine  himself  in 
the  position  of  the  thousands  of  men  from  whom 
this  severe  weather  suddenly  cuts  off  their  means 
of  livelihood.  ...  It  would  not  be  long  before 
he  and  his  fellow-miserables  gave  tongue. 

"It  is  worth  while  considering  this  dumb  apathy 
of  the  lower  masses  of  the  people  who  must  be  at 
the  extreme  of  poverty  even  for  them,  at  starva 
tion  point  in  fact,  before  they  resent  their  circum 
stances.  If  they  have  any  standard  or  ideal  theory 
of  life  at  all,  it  seems  to  consist  in  the  pride  or 
vanity  of  endurance.  They  seem  as  proud  of  their 
superiority  in  misfortunes  as  others  are  of  their 
successes.  It  is  only  amongst  the  higher  work 
men  that  there  is  any  theory  as  to  the  social  and 
economic  disabilities  of  their  class;  and  if  these 
attempt  to  give  them  voice  they  are  received 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        305 

nowhere  with  such  cold  indifference  and  contempt 
as  by  those  for  whom  they  claim  to  speak.  Neither 
the  economics  nor  the  politics  of  the  genuine  poor 
take  any  wider  view  than  the  casual  accident  of 
the  moment  which  may  affect  to  the  extent  of  a 
shilling  or  two  a  week  their  precarious  wages. 
When  we  wonder  if  it  can  be  any  theory,  or  what 
we  may  call  philosophy,  which  keeps  them  quiet 
under  such  harassing  conditions  as  theirs,  a  tithe 
of  which  would  throw  their  social  superiors  into 
a  revolutionary  fever,  we  cannot  find  any.  There 
does  not  seem  so  much  as  this — that  if  they  go 
into  the  streets  and  raise  disturbances  they  will 
be  put  down  by  the  police  or  the  military,  and 
gain  nothing  by  their  efforts.  Indeed,  that,  if  it 
were  so,  would  suppose  a  capacity  for  generaliza 
tion,  and  a  moral  power  of  self-restraint  and  calcu 
lation  which,  in  the  moment  of  the  enduring  of 
such  sufferings,  would  be  a  miraculous  mental 
phenomenon.  The  impulse  of  higher  intelligences 
and  natures  in  such  circumstances  would  be  to 
throw  prudence  to  the  winds;  and  the  relief  to 
be  obtained  in  violent  outbreak  and  the  letting 
off  of  pent  up  feelings  in  some  physical  demon 
stration  or  other,  even  if  it  led  to  prison,  would 
be  almost  a  necessity.  They  have  to  be  very  bad 
before  it  comes  to  this,  with  the  great  body  of 
the  respectable  poor.  The  chief  reason  of  their 


306        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

quietude  is  their  low  intelligence  and  their  low 
standard  of  comfort,  as  the  economists  call  it. 
Their  resentment  is  not  aroused  by  any  general 
sense  of  wrongs;  they  cannot  get  to  the  mental 
attitude  of  tracing  their  misfortunes  to  general 
causes,  such  as  the  political  or  economic  constitu 
tion  of  society.  Their  grievances  are  specific  and 
individual.  Whether  their  employer  is  a  good  or 
a  bad  paymaster,  and  can  find  them  in  'jobs/ 
sums  up  for  them  the  whole  economic  situation, 
and  there  are  no  other  problems  visible  in  the  rela 
tions  of  capital  and  labor.  They  are  the  men 
who  see  nothing  in  politics  and  local  elections,  . 
.  .  unless  they  can  get  some  casual  job  or  a  few 
shillings  or  an  allowance  of  beer  out  of  them. 
They  do  not  see  politics  in  relation  to  anything. 

"All  these  things  have  one  root,  intellectual  and 
moral  apathy  and  imperviousness  to  ideas  of  any 
kind.  .  .  .  Perhaps  it  may  need  another  cen 
tury  to  determine  whether  that  is  the  fault  of 
education,  or  whether  it  proves  that  Nature  for 
some  wise  purpose  has  endowed  large  numbers  of 
her  children  with  the  blessing  or  the  misfortune, 
as  yet  undetermined,  of  an  almost  animal  impas 
sivity  and  stolidity.  .  .  .  Chill  penury  does  not 
serve  in  the  mass,  as  individual  poverty  does  some 
times,  as  a  stimulus  to  better  things.  It  has  the 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         307 

opposite  effect.  ...  Let  sleeping  dogs  lie  is 
a  human  policy  we  do  not  like  to  avow,  even  if  we 
practise  it.  ...  The  silent  poor  are  utterly 
unable  to  work  out  their  own  salvation.  They 
cannot  help  themselves:  help  can  reach  them  only 
from  without.  [Saturday  Keview.j" 

Giles    threw    his    great    shoulders    back     and 
looked  defiantly  into  the  faces  of  the  crowd. 

"I  give  you  this  true  picture  of  Old  World 
society  and  human  nature  that  you  may  know  what 
my  plans  against  you  were/'  he  said.  "Waking 
dogs  may  be  put  to  sleep;  the  capitalist  has  got 
that  art.  First  make  men  dogs,  then  they  go 
to  sleep.  The  masses  of  Europe  are  fast  asleep 
from  long  degrading  oppression;  I  purposed  to 
give  you  sleep  by  gradual  doses  of  the  same  want. 
Men  are  not  born  of  God  broken-spirited  and  dead 
of  mind;  they  are  mentally  killed  by  the  blows 
of  poverty  struck  on  them  by  their  kindred  men. 
I  should  have  impoverished  three-fourths  of  this 
nation's  workers,  brought  them  down  to  the  shame 
and  bloodlessness  of  penury,  where  they  would 
have  been  men  no  longer,  but  soulless,  courageless 
man-shadows,  to  do  my  will  for  a  crust  and  straw. 
They  would  have  voted  my  will,  worked  my  will, 
fought  my  will.  Who  could  have  aroused  them? 
Because  their  vital  force  had  been  starved  to  death, 
the  truth  and  eloquence  of  those  beating  the  fir- 


308        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

mament  to  move  them  would  have  shattered 
against  a  silence  of  stone.  I  should  have  parted 
many  from  employment,  to  cheapen  production 
and  lessen  costs  to  the  consumer — as  we  say  to 
amuse  the  consumer — and  the  cheated  consumer 
would  have  believed  and  sustained  me.  He  always 
does.  He  is  made  of  the  gas  of  credulity. 

"The  derelict  unemployed  waifs  would  soon 
have  rotted  away  into  my  character-killed  dum 
mies  of  men.  I  might  have  employed  them  inter 
mittently  to  soothe  the  public;  a  day's  work,  with 
seven  or  eight  of  idleness  to  consume  the  earnings 
and  rest  their  apparatus  of  nutrition,  paying  well 
enough  for  the  single  days  to  edify  the  public  with 
the  fairness  of  their  incomes.  The  public  is  lightly 
soothed.  If  it  isn't  starving  itself  it  takes  the 
starvation  of  others  calmly. — Of  workingmen 
especially.  They  never  had  much,  and  starving 
isn't  a  great  change.  In  a  little  while  all  trt'cc 
unemployed  would  have  reached  the  depths  of 
speechless  stolidity  in  suffering.  God  is  good, 
suffering  is  its  own  anesthetic,  enough  of  it. 

"I  have  not  portrayed  all  the  sunkenness  of 
partial  starvation,  the  creeping  death  I  had  in 
store  for  you. — Don't  be  excited,  you  have  escaped. 
With  softened  faculties,  these  sad  three-fourths 
gkip  on  their  quaking  legs  to  fill  our  armies  to 
shoot  the  intelligent  who  tell  them  of  life  and 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         309 

freedom.  They  stagger  with  half-maniac  pride 
when  they  can  lift  the  guns  of  their  masters  and 
waddle  forth  in  pomp  to  murder  the  friends  who 
would  save  them  and  give  them  food  and  a  humap 
life  that  would  make  them  human.  Their  degra 
dation  is  then  absolute,  for  they  glory  in  patient 
starvation  and  fight  under  the  banner  of  their 
starvers  to  defend  their  sacred  privilege  to  starve. 

"You  see,  friends,  I  have  sufficient  contempt 
for  the  objects  of  my  creation.  Don't  call  me  a 
demon.  I  was  only  doing  what  had  to  be  done  (/ 
to  sustain  capitalism.  You  wanted  capitalism 
sustained  until  the  other  day,  didn't  you?  Ic 
couldn't  have  been  without  systematic  under- 
nutrition  of  a  good  part  of  your  class  and  slow 
extermination  of  the  unnecessary.  I  was  no  more 
wicked  than  others  in  seeing  what  we  all  knew 
we  were  doing,  and  acknowledging  it  to  myself. 
The  rest  were  all  hypocrites,  humbugs,  liars,  to  tj 
themselves  and  the  world.  Capitalism  couldn't 
survive  without  using  fiendish  means,  and  I  say 
every  one  of  us  knew  in  his  heart  it  was  so. 
You  knew  it,  too,  didn't  you?  If  you  didn't,  I 
am  sorry  for  your  intellects.  If  you  did,  you  too 
knowingly  upheld  the  system  that  required  us 
capitalists  to  be  fiends.  Draw  what  consolation 
you  can  from  that. 

"Even    the    higher    workingmen,    with    trade 


310        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

union  shibboleths,,  are  not  far  higher  than  the  un 
employed,  being  appeased  with  little  concessions 
in  wages  and  hours,  but  not  demanding  the 
abolition  of  masters.  When  their  delegates  go  to 
play  the  part  of  labor-lobbyists  at  Congress  and 
the  State  Houses,,  they  are  contaminated  by  the 
wiles  of  the  professional  politicians. 

"If  the  people  were  different.,  were  men,  they 
would  rise  in  every  country  in  mass,  break  their 
yoke,  and  change  the  fashion  of  the  social  organ 
ism  that  keeps  them  miserably  dishonored.  So 
would  the  horse  probably  revolt  against  his  brutish 
servitude  if  he  were  different.  You  couldn't 
harness  the  lion  to  an  ash-cart. 

"But  we,  the  mighty,  have  knitted  the  ideas  of 
goodness,  respectability  and  submissiveness  tightly 
together  in  the  poor  man's  poor  mind.  Fooled, 
he  abhors  wandering  from  respectability  into  com 
motion — to  save  his  nature  from  emaciation  and 
death;  he  reveres  the  law  which  destroys  him, 
electing  his  masters  to  make  the  law;  quiet  and 
orderliness  are  his  idols,  while  those  who  have  pro 
nounced  order  good  and  non-resistance  sublime, 
take  his  bread  and  let  him  perish  by  the  wayside. 
And  if  he  protests  they  club  and  shoot  him  to 
death  in  a  peaceable  and  orderly  manner. 
Peace  and  order  are  sublime  for  owners  of  prop 
erty,  that  the  horde  with  no  property,  death- 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         311 

marked  by  want,  may  not  rise  and  take  a  mouthful. 

"I  can  speak  honestly  since  I  am  beaten,  and 
fjjat  dignified  old  order  of  legal  crime  is  gone. 
It  does  me  good  to  speak  out  and  tell  everything. 
If  the  poor  of  the  world  had  been  gifted  with  the 
vaguest  stirring  of  true  intellect  in  these  years 
past  they  would  have  risen  and  risen  again,  until 
society  had  been  impossible  and  life  unbearable 
for  the  dominant  conspirators  who  mure  them  in 
the  dungeon  of  penury ;  they  would  have  made  the 
days  of  these  feelingless  few  unboundedly 
wretched  until  justice  was  done.  Nowhere  in  the 
world  could  the  insurgent  poor  have  been  put 
down  had  they  demeaned  themselves  like  men. 

"I  may  as  well  make  full  confession.  I'm  going 
to  read  a  document  prepared  by  me  for  my 
daughter  while  I  still  expected  victory,  while  I 
thought  she  would  fail  in  her  evangel  and  return 
to  me  in  her  right  mind.  I  intended  her  to  have 
it  as  soon  as  she  proved  herself  good  capitalist 
timber.  Here  it  is: 

TO  MAKGAEET. 

"You  learn  life  very  slowly,  and  are  full  of 
ideas  beneath  your  circumstances.  I  wish  I  could 
impress  some  of  the  doctrines  of  that  eminent 
Capitalist  and  Psychologist,  the  King  of  Belgium, 
upon  you.  Although  a  King,  he  is  a  Light  of 


312         The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

Civilization.     The  capitalist  is  the  proper  king, 
made  over  to  fit  modern  styles. 

"Leopold  has  written  a  book  for  the  benefit  of 
his  heir  presumptive;  if  I  had  the  naming  of  it- 
it  should  be  called  'The  Capitalists'  Bible/  I 
will  quote  a  few  gems  of  his  advice,  most  of  which 
might  have  been  written  by  any  American  con- 
soli  dator  to  his  heir  presumptive.  A  capitalist 
must  be  as  bright  as  the  kings  to  keep  his  throne 
on  the  nation  and  protect  his  annual  rake-off — 
for  the  canaille  are  always  the  same,  in  America, 
Germany,  or  Belgium. 

"Leopold  says:  'Now  that  you  are  king,  I  be 
seech  you  to  stick  to  this  maxim:  Never  give  any 
thing  in  writing  at  all,  for  subjects  never  forget 
a  pledge  of  that  sort,  nor  can  they  be  persuaded 
of  any  double  meaning  it  may  contain.  Verbal 
promises,  on  the  other  hand,  are — mere  sound  and 
smoke,  quickly  forgotten  and  usually  ill-reported. 
At  leaot,  the  official  press  may  hint  that  the  latter 
is  the  case.  Besides,  the  common  people  hate 
writers  and  thinkers,  because  thinking  is  outside 
their  own  sphere. 

"  'Do  not  read  books  on  philosophic,  economic, 
or  social-problem  topics — they  are  liable    to    in 
fluence  you  against  your  own   interest. 
Read  solely  to  amuse  yourself,  novels    old    and 
row.' 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.         313 

"This  is  wise  counsel  for  you  as  well,  my  dear 
Margaret.  Never  make  the  common  people  any 
paper  promises.  And  you  know  I  have  brought 
you  up  not  to  read  at  all.  Adhere  to  it.  Even 
some  novels  have  an  occasional  thought  in  them. 

''The  king  continues:  'As  a  shining  example,  I 
recommend  to  you  Leopold  I.,  your  grandfather. 
Originally  a  mere  adventurer,  he  rose  to  the  dis 
tinction  of  the  Councillor  of  Kings.  My  army, 
my  court,  my  ministries  and  parliament  are 
peopled  with  his  illegitimate  sons.  .  .  .  Yet 
Grandfather  Leopold  had  the  reputation  of  a 
virtuous  monarch.  He  maltreated  his  wife,  an 
Orleans,  but  as  her  moans  never  reached  the  ears 
of  the  people  it  mattered  not.  As  I  said,  he  had 
illegitimate  children  by  the  score,  and  died  in  the 
odor  of  sanctity ! 

"  'The  above  teaches  you,  my  dear  Albert,  thai 
outward  aspect  is  everything.' 

"I  quote  this,  Margaret,  to  show  you  our  great 
superiority  over  the  Old  World  in  real  moral 
matters.  This  is  conduct  I  do  not  approve  of. 
The  family  is  most  important  for  righteousness. 
If  that  is  allowed  to  be  lax  the  State  and  Industry 
may  totter;  if  the  people  are  virtuous  in  their 
family  relations  the}''  will  never  disturb  the  Laws 
of  Property.  Yet  we  must  be  lenient  with  Leo 
pold,  for  the  Old  World  is  like  the  Old  Biblical 


314        The  Monarch  Billionaire. 

Dispensation.  In  questions  of  virtue  the  United 
States  is  to  Europe  what  the  New  Testament  is 
to  the  Old.  We  are  blessed  to  have  been  born  at 
a  distance  from  Evil,  but  in  Statecraft  and  Econ 
omy  Leopold  is  quite  modern,  he  is  a  very  capi 
talist.  His  next  remark  proves  him  to  be  a  mem 
ber  of  the  New  Dispensation.  Counsels  he : 

"  'The  abo-ve  teaches  you,  my  dear  Albert,  that 
outward  aspect  is  everything.  As  for  myself,  I 
was  compelled,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  to  kill  more 
negroes  than  all  the  slavers  Great  Britain  hunted 
down  during  the  nineteenth  century,  yet  I  re 
tained  the  reputation  of  a  "civilizer."  I  introduced 
a  new  sort  of  slavery,  and  am  hailed  as  "liberator." 
All  the  blame  for  the  Congo  atrocities,  so-called, 
is  charged  to  the  account  of  my  partners  by  un 
prejudiced  people,  and  my  own  prestige  remains 
intact.' 

"This  is  quite  right,  dear  Margaret,  it's  busi 
ness.  I  have  large  investments  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  and  South  Africa,  and  he  has  caught  the 
truth  with  a  camera.  We  must  mow  down  the 
negroes  for  Traffic's  sake  and  call  it  God's  sake — 
Civilization's  sake  will  do  as  well  for  those  who 
have  outgrown  God — but  we  don't  need  to  blister 
our  palms  with  the  scythe  ourselves.  Let  the 
armies  do  it,  and  take  the  responsibility  for  killing, 
while  we  take  the  dividends.  The  masses  will  not 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        315 

let  the  thinkers  attack  the  army  for  doing  our 
killing;  besides,  the  masses  will  pay  the  army  for 
doing  it.  It's  like  paying  our  taxes.  Bemember, 
Margaret,  that  the  army  is  the  life  of  the  capital 
ist.  Patriotism  is  what  keeps  the  army  alrve. 
You  must,  therefore,  subscribe  liberally  to  the 
Fourth  of  July  and  hang  the  flag  out  over  your 
consolidations.  The  people  have  no  stake  in  the 
country,  but  they  have  a  stake  in  the  flag.  If  you 
let  it  float  over  your  consolidations — which  once 
were  their  property — the  accommodating  idiots 
will  believe  they  have  a  stake  in  the  consolidations. 
Beat  your  drums  and  they  will  enlist  to  die  for 
you.  Turn  the  crank  of  patriotism  and  the  people 
will  confirm  your  monopolies  with  their  blood. 

"I  now  come  to  Leopold's  most  precious  senti 
ments  for  the  capitalist;  take  them  into  your 
bosom  and  you  will  thrive,  neglect  them  and  you 
will  adorn  the  commercial  gibbet. 

"  'Avoid  being  a  mere  man,  my  dear  Albert/ 
warns  this  royal  reader  of  men.  'A  king  has  no 
business  to  have  a  heart.  I  killed  mine  long  ago, 
the  day  I  mounted  the  throne.  Do  the  same, 
Albert,  if  you  want  to  be  a  successful  ruler.  Heart 
less  by  my  own  free  choice,  I  saw  around  me  much 
blood  and  dirt,  yet  kept  aloof.  No  one  ever  saw 
me  affected  or  disconcerted,  no  matter  what  hap 
pened.  .  .  .  Eemember  these  maxims : 


316         The  Monarch   Billionaire. 

"  'A  king  must  be  big  enough  to  do  without  a. 
heart. 

"  'A  woman  born  in  the  purple  must  not  even 
know  that  she  has  a  heart. 

"  cBe  heartless,  Albert,  if  you  want  to  be  suc 
cessful.  Your  brother  tried  to  be,  and  was,  but 
made  an  exception  in  the  case  of  women.  That 
led  to  his  death — your  elevation.  A  hysteric  lady 
of  our  highest  aristocracy  is  indirectly  responsible 
for  his  death ;  her  husband  killed  him.  I  sent  the 
avenger  of  his  manly  honor  to  Africa,  ordering 
him  to  commit  suicide,  which  duty  he  performed. 
He  might  have  defied  me,  but  he  had  too  much 
heart  to  do  it.  Beware  of  affections  of  the  heart, 
Albert. 

"  'My  second  daughter !  She,  too,  could  not 
divorce  herself  from  her  heart,  and  is  living  in 
an  insane  asylum,  though  every  one  says  she  is 
sane.  .  .  .  Albert,  let  the  fate  of  my  daughters 
be  a  warning  to  you.  They  are  ruined  because 
they  could  not  live  as  befits  royalty.  Your  success, 
too,  will  die  young  unless  you  live  up  to  the  max 
ims  of  a  successful  king,  who  remains,  your  loving 
uncle.  LEOPOLD/ 

"Some  of  you  will  say  that  Leopold  never  wrote 
that :  it  doesn't  make  any  difference,  he  has  lived  it; 
if  some  one  else  observed  his  life  and  transcribed 


The  Monarch  Billionaire.        317 

his  moving  principles,  it  is  the  same  as  if  he  had 
\vritten  them  out  himself.  It  is  a  true  picture, 
and  a  true  one  of  what  the  capitalist  has  to  be 
and  is,  to  succeed. 

"I  admit  my  defeat.  You  have  risen  at  last 
and  my  strength  is  shorn;  I'm  going  to  enter 
willingly  into  the  new  order  of  things  and  lend  it 
my  help.  But  I  take  pride  in  saying  as  an  un 
repentant  commercial  warrior  of  the  nohle  old 
monarchical  school  that  if  you  had  waited  just  a 
little  longer  I  should  have  brought  you  down  to 
degradation  so  subtly  and  rotted  your  character 
AS  absolutely  that  you  would  not  have  had  will, 
wish,  or  power  to  rise.  You  were  saved  by  the  ef 
forts  of  agitators  with  higher  ideas,  who 
broke  your  lazy  slumbers,  who  forced  your  hostile 
ears  to  hear,  who  drove  aspirations  into  your  in 
different  souls,  which  grew  there  in  spite  of  you 
and  with  no  credit  to  you,  and  finally  gave  you 
spirit  to  put  forth  your  invincible  arm." 


THE  END. 


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